SPANISH SMALL BUSINESSES INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF LATAM’S GROWTH

Madrid, November 18- Latin America's economic growth is expected to be two or three times larger than Spain's in the next few years, says a private report by Banco Santander in an effort to encourage Spanish small businesses to take advantage of the growth and job opportunities that the region has to offer.

While speaking at the 13th Latibex Forum in Madrid, Banco Santander's director Francisco Luzón assured that after Chile's economic boom, Brazil has now become the continent's second “economic and social miracle”.

Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay and Colombia are also expected to join the phenomenon.

According to the Spanish bank, this decade belongs to Latin America, a decade in which “economies are expected to maintain a sustained growth and over 50 million people are expected to emerge from poverty”.

“This is a region that has been waiting many years for its current success”, he said.

Luzón cited Brazil as an “example of triumph” since the country now represents half of the region's GDP and a third of its population.

Luzón also highlighted the advantages of sharing a common language and culture. “We're not strangers there so our companies should take advantage of this”, he explained.

He closed by reminding the audience that Latin America has also become a necessary stop between the Asian-Pacific region (especially China) and Europe.

Banco Santader is the largest bank in the Euro zone and one of the largest in the world in term of market capitalization. In 2008 the group announced it was taking over UK’s Alliance & Leicester. This was followed by the acquisition of the savings business of UK bank Bradford & Bingley. The banks, along with Abbey are to be merged together under the Santander name in the UK by the end of 2010.

In October 2008, Grupo Santander announced that it would acquire the 75.65% of Sovereign Bancorp it did not currently own for approximately 1.9 billion US dollars. The acquisition of Sovereign has given Santander its first retail bank in mainland United States.

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