Encouraging the internationalization of Spanish companies and increase Spain's participation in international commerce are top priorities for Jaime García-Legaz, who is the Commerce Secretary of State. His new team is already working on a deep restructuring project for the groups and tools that support exporting and foreign investment. Central to these plans is integrating ICEX and public companies to form a so-called Spanish International Agency (Agencia Española de la Internacionalización).
Reports circulating between commerce experts and Partido Popular congressional members indicate that this centralized group designed to promote foreign commerce for Spanish companies would be developed around the Spanish Institute for Foreign Commerce (ICEX following the Spanish abbreviation), by incorporating the state company in order to capture foreign investments (Invest in Spain) and the commercial and financial services company P4R (formerly Expansión Exterior).
Compañía Española de Financiación al Desarrollo (Cofides) might also be incorporated into this entity, although in this case there would have to be negotiations with the private banks capitalizing Cofides.
The ICEX, which is a majority stakeholder in Invest in Spain and P4R, only has approximately 20% of Cofides, a company that it is invested in alongside the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO), Empresa Nacional de Innovación (Enisa), BBVA, Santander and Sabadell. The fact that the three largest public institutions hold 61% of the capital collectively could facilitate integration.
Enisa's participation in the project has not been ruled out considering that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stated in his inauguration speech that "it is necessary to create a unified policy by integrating financial tools of technological support."