mercredi 25 mars 2015
Back from the Brink: Spain Emerges as Model for Europe
Posted on 15:51 by nice news
It almost looks like the highly productive and stereotypically spotless Swabia region of Germany. So orderly. So accurate. One glassed-in company headquarters after the next. Only the park benches on the sidewalks betray the fact that Alcobendas is near Madrid, and not an industrial area near Stuttgart -- the sun shines more often here. Mercedes Benz, which is based in Stuttgart, also has a base here. The Spanish branch of the company has its headquarters in Alcobendas. To get to the office of José Luis López-Schümmer, the president of Mercedes-Benz España, you need to walk behind a bulky SUV and head to the elevator. López, a bearded man of about 50, smiles contentedly. "Business is going well again," he says.
He has reason to be in a good mood. Mercedes van sales have already gone up by half over the past year: The cars are popular among Spanish small-business owners. In the first couple of months of this year, the number of car registrations went up by another 27 percent.
López is especially proud of the fact that over the past year his country has produced 2.4 million cars, and is leaving the traditional car-producing countries of Italy and France further and further behind. Only Germany produces more cars in Europe than Spain, albeit by a wide margin.
It was exports, and not domestic demand, that lifted Spain out of the worst economic crisis since the civil war in the 1930s. "Ninety percent of our Mercedes vans and trucks, which we produce in two plants in the Basque region, head outside of the country," López says.
The model being emulated by the country during its upturn is unmistakable. During
He has reason to be in a good mood. Mercedes van sales have already gone up by half over the past year: The cars are popular among Spanish small-business owners. In the first couple of months of this year, the number of car registrations went up by another 27 percent.
López is especially proud of the fact that over the past year his country has produced 2.4 million cars, and is leaving the traditional car-producing countries of Italy and France further and further behind. Only Germany produces more cars in Europe than Spain, albeit by a wide margin.
It was exports, and not domestic demand, that lifted Spain out of the worst economic crisis since the civil war in the 1930s. "Ninety percent of our Mercedes vans and trucks, which we produce in two plants in the Basque region, head outside of the country," López says.
The model being emulated by the country during its upturn is unmistakable. During
Back from the Brink: Spain Emerges as Model for Europe
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