UK/Spain facts and figures

SPAIN/UK Here are some facts and figures drawn directly from the British Embassy website:

Population and size
Spain has two-thirds of the UK´s population, but is twice as big geographically:

• UK: 62 million people and 243,610 km2 / 94,060 sq. miles
• Spain: 46.6 million people and 504,030 km2 / 195,364 sq. miles>>>

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Economy and business

• The UK’s seventh largest export market is Spain, with exports worth £9.61 billion (€10.5 billion) in 2010.
• The UK was the world’s largest foreign investor in Spain from 2000 to 2009. UK exports to Spain are more than to China and India combined.
• Around 700 UK companies are investing in Spain, including BP, Barclays, BA, Diageo, easyJet and Vodafone. National Express, which has a significant Spanish minority ownership, employs over 6000 local staff, and SAGE, with 1500, are among the largest UK employers/investors in Spain.
• Spain’s goods and services exports to the UK were £18.62 billion (€20.5 billion) in 2009. In 2009 Spanish direct investment in the UK was greater than for the whole of Latin America.
• Spain is a leading investor in the UK and some 400 Spanish companies are registered. Ferrovial/BAA, Telefónica/O2, Iberdrola/Scottish Power and Santander/Abbey were the biggest sources of inward investment from 2006 to 2008. Santander has over 1300 branches and owns the former Abbey National, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley brands. Ferrovial owns a number of UK airports including London Heathrow where it is investing €6 billion. Iberdrola plans to invest €8.5 billion by 2014, Saica is investing €400 million in Europe’s most modern paper recycling mill, and Gamesa €150 million in its global offshore wind HQ.
• Spanish projects in the UK increased by 47% to 56 in 2010/11, and jobs generated were up by 116% to 3,542. Spain was the 8th largest investor (by number of projects) in the UK.

Tourism and British citizens in Spain

• Some 2.1 million Spanish residents visited the UK in 2009 and made a direct economic contribution of £1 bn (€1.1 billion).
• Around 12 million UK residents visited Spain in 2010 - some 23.6% of total visitors to the country - , making the UK the largest contributor to the Spanish tourism industry
• with 6.4 billion euros. The first half of 2011 saw an increase of around 25% against the previous year, due largely to a switch from North African destinations.
• An estimated one million British nationals live in Spain for all or part of the year.
• The UK has nine Consulates in Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Ibiza, Palma de Mallorca, Madrid, Málaga, Las Palmas and Tenerife. There are 13 Honorary Consuls in Almería, Andorra, Jerez, Denia, Gerona, Granada, Lanzarote, Menorca, Murcia, Sevilla, Tarragona, Valencia and Vigo.
• There are 30 UK airports with direct flights to Spain and 26 Spanish airports offering flights to the UK. There are over 2900 flights per week between Spain and the UK (August 2011).

Language and Education

• Some 8300 Spanish students study in British universities and 40,000 in English language schools.
• There are 90 accredited British schools in Spain, of which 55 are members of the National Association of British schools in Spain (NABBS).
• The Bilingual Schools project (in partnership with the Spanish Ministry of Education and regional education authorities) reaches 220,000 students in state schools spread across 11 regions in Spain.

British creativity and design in Spain

• A number of leading British architects are well represented in Spain. Norman Foster designed Bilbao's Metro stations and the Caja Madrid skyscraper in Madrid; Richard Rogers designed Terminal 4 at Madrid Barajas Airport; and David Chipperfield was lead architect for the America’s Cup Building in Valencia and Ciudad de la Justicia in Barcelona.
• Well-known British clothing brands such as Barbour, Burberry, Church, Episode, Hackett London and Karen Millen have extensive retail operations in Spain.

Military co-operation

• The UK and Spain have been NATO allies since 1982, working together on operations such as ISAF (Afghanistan) and the anti-piracy Operation Atalanta. They are engaged in major collaborative projects such as the Eurofighter, A400M aircraft and the RAF’s Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft, as well as a number of bilateral personnel exchange programmes.
• In 2010, some 2640 British Armed Forces personnel undertook training exercises in Spain, 43 Royal Navy warships visited, and there were over 400 UK military overflights or landings in Spanish airspace.