MADRID – Spain’s Crown Prince Felipe called Monday for greater public-private cooperation in dealing with transport infrastructure projects in Ibero-America, taking into account “the experience and excellence of many leading Spanish companies.”

The prince, who presided over the inauguration of the Infrastructure Business Meeting in Madrid, said that collaboration of the two sectors would be “to everyone’s benefit: in the greater development of societies in other countries of the Ibero-American community and, why not, for economic recovery and job creation in Spain.”

“I trust that this forum will lead the way to achieving concrete results in this area,” Prince Felipe told an audience that included executives of the principal companies in the sector and the Ibero-American secretary-general, Enrique Iglesias.

Infrastructure contributes “so much” to “building community and brotherhood, to building Ibero-America,” Prince Felipe said.

In his address, the heir to the Spanish crown thanked the Ibero-American General Secretariat, or SEGIB, and the Andean Development Corporation, or CAF, for joining forces to organize this business forum in the midst of these “hard times of crisis and difficulties.”

He said it shows that these obstacles should not stop anyone from seeing clearly how to overcome the barriers that are blocking development.

After recalling that in Ibero-America there exists “a certain deficit of transport infrastructure that limits productivity and, consequently, growth,” Prince Felipe said that the investment requirements of this sector are so enormous that “they can’t be dealt with separately either by the private sector or by government,” but demand a “joint effort” by both. EFE