For many large Spanish and Portuguese companies, Latin America is a natural place to invest. And, in the second half of the 1990s and for a short time after, invest they did.
Between 1990 and 1994, Spain’s investment in the Latin American and Caribbean region only amounted to an average $733m a year, according to figures produced by the Inter-American Development Bank. Between 1995 and 1999, however, this shot up to an average $9.5bn a year – making Spain the largest foreign investor in the region, larger even than the US.
