New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS): One of the largest banks in the Eurozone, CaixaBank, Wednesday announced it would be setting up a representative office in India to help Spanish companies interested in tapping into the fast growing Indian economy.
Based in Spain, CaixaBank is one of the leading players in the retail banking space in that country, having more than 10.5 million individual customers.
"The bank's presence in India is a further demonstration of our willingness to move with our customers as they grow internationally, as well as to contribute towards the development of a country that is now being looked to as a driver of the global economy," said Isidro Faine, chairman, CaixaBank.
Trade between India and Spain in 2010 was to the tune of Euro 4 billion, with India importing mostly engineering goods from the European economy.
Foreign direct investment from Spain (April 2000-March 2011) has invested a total of around $800 million in India, making it the 13th largest FDI source for the South Asian economy.
In the first half of 2011 CaixaBank handled 10 percent of all trade flows between Spain and India.
"We plan to increase our market share of the trade transactions between Spain and India to 15 percent in the next couple of years," Ignacio Alvarez-Rendueles, head of the bank's international operations told reporters here.