Amsterdam, Apr 4 (IANS/EFE): Spain will begin to see job growth in 2014, the leader of the Iberian nation's Business Council for Competitiveness, or CEC, said here.

"We believe that if we continue with the reforms that are pending, and with that around the European stability of the euro and the good pace of exports, we could begin to see job creation at the end of the second quarter of 2014," CEC director Fernando Casado told EFE ahead of an event in Amsterdam to present the report "Spain, Country of Opportunities".

The CEC, comprising more than a score of leading Spanish companies, chose the Netherlands as the starting point of a 23-city international tour to highlight the report, which aims to convey optimism about the prospects for investment in Spain.

CEC analysts forecast that the Spanish economy will grow by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of this year after seven consecutive quarters of recession.

While Spain's gross domestic product is expected to shrink 1.4 percent for 2013 as a whole, the CEC projects GDP growth of 0.8 percent next year.

Foreign investment in Spain has continued at pre-crisis levels and that demonstrates investors' confidence in the Iberian nation, Casado said.

Also in Amsterdam for the CEC event is Spanish economist Jose Manuel Campa, a former secretary of state for the economy, who said that Spain "is beginning a path in which there is first a recovery of investment" to be followed by a recovery in employment.

"In 2014 we will see substantial net job creation," he said.

Spanish exports have increased 25 percent compared with the levels before the economic crisis, according to figures from the CEC, and Spain is running a trade surplus with the other nations in the euro zone.