Honduran President invites corporate Spain to invest in his country

During his official visit to Spain, Honduran president Ricardo Maduro underscored his country’s stability and invited Spanish companies to invest there amid great opportunities in tourism and industry.

The Honduran government has embarked on a state-run plan aimed at reforms based on sustainable policies, clear rules and competitive costs,” president Maduro told some fifty execs from Spain’s top companies at the onset of his official visit to the country.

Since taking office in January 2002, the war against corruption has bee one of Mr. Maduro’s premiere goals. “That’s why we’ve put state purchases in the hands of foreign entities,” he said.

President Maduro told Spanish entrepreneurs Honduras is deeply mired in poorness since 80 percent of its 6.5 million inhabitants lives below the poverty line. However –he went on to say- his country is also blessed with “a reserve of great capabilities” to draw in major foreign investment.

Following a decade of projects primarily centered in rebuilding the country after hurricane Mitch hit the nation in 1998, the Honduran President said the country is “basically rebuilt now” and advocated to pour investment money from public works into other sectors, yet without neglecting the former.

Thus, Mr. Maduro underlined tourism –mostly based on Copan’s Mayan ruins- as well as the manufacturing industry and farming, as three of the top priority sectors.

In the case of the manufacturing sector, he explained this industry is beginning to snap back and branch out from textiles to electronics following two years of decline.

President Maduro also mentioned a diversification process currently underway in the farming industry whereby such sectors as fish breeding, other than traditional crops like bananas and coffee, are riveting farmers’ attention.

In this respect, Mr. Maduro touched particularly on the development of shrimp breeding, a commodity destined to become one of the country’s top exports.

According to Spanish official stats, shrimps, coffee, wood and fabrics accounted for roughly 40 percent of Honduras’s exports to Spain which amounted to 29.5 million euros in 2002.

For its part, Spain exported 50 million euros worth of goods to Honduras last year, a figures that left earnings to the Spanish market for as many as 20.5 million euros.