Shanghai became the first Asian metropolis to receive the honour of city of honour at Barcelona's cultural festival, La Merce. Shanghai Vice Mayor Lu Shan travelled to Barcelona to address the opening ceremony of La Merce.
Lu Shan asserted that Chinese and Catalan cultural traditions share "a common spirit". Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish Prime Minister, has visited China's President Xi Jinping on four occasions within the last four years.
Some EU partners view Spain's welcoming approach to Chinese enterprises as potentially allowing China to become an economic adversary within the bloc. Germany and France advocate for granting Brussels the authority to exclude subsidized Chinese competitors from the European Union market.
The European Commission stated that trade imbalances with Beijing have reached €1 billion per day. Victor Cortizo noted that Chinese investment within Spain has doubled over the past year alone.
The United States remains Spain's largest single foreign investor. Chery Automobile established Spain as its initial European manufacturing and operations centre two years ago.
Hithium intends to make an investment in Navarra, located in northern Spain. CATL is engaged in constructing a lithium iron phosphate battery gigafactory in Zaragoza.
Last year, Spain's Ministry of the Interior awarded the Chinese technology firm Huawei a contract worth €12.3 million for storing and managing sensitive judicial wiretap data. Juan Ignacio Zoido Álvarez stated that the Huawei contract places "the entirety of the EU at risk".
