In just five days, this citizen assistance service, through which it is intended to facilitate the international travel of all those businessmen, workers, professionals or technicians who need to undertake international trips despite the severe restrictions derived from COVID-19, About 700 phone calls have been answered and more than a hundred emails have been answered. Last Friday alone, 170 calls were recorded.
These figures have forced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Union and Cooperation to reinforce the service with more volunteers from the Administration to answer calls to 060 (or +34 911252122 from abroad) from Monday to Friday. between 9.00 and 14.00, and by email connect@maec.es.
50% of the inquiries received related to trips abroad and the other half on conditions of entry and stay in Spain. Most of the consultations have focused on knowing when entry restrictions in third countries end, what the current requirements are, the end date of the state of alarm in Spain, whether or not to quarantine when entering Spain, essential activities, entry with spouses and descendants into Spanish territory, among others.
The predominant profile of the applicants for this type of information corresponds to small and medium-sized Spanish companies that want to send personnel abroad for business trips or technical tasks of a few days, companies from neighboring countries whose managers or technicians must travel to Spain in days, as well as liberal professionals and students who need to make short trips to other countries.
The countries that have been consulted the most during this first week of operation have been France, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Morocco, China, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The information provided is reviewed daily with the contents provided, as well as from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Union and Cooperation itself, by the competent departments of the Ministry of Holiness, the Interior and Commerce.
This new tool, which will be available as long as travel restrictions persist, comes to cover a demand that had been detected by different departments of the Administration and, in addition, will allow to identify more precisely the countries in which there is a greater deficit of practical information for this group that sees the need to travel despite the severe restrictions imposed by COVID-19.
Once the information has been analyzed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Union and Cooperation, along with the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, will have sufficient elements to reinforce the information channels through the Spanish Embassies and Consulates abroad. as well as by the network of Commercial Offices available to the State if necessary.
During 2019, some 4.5 million people left Spain for work reasons, while 5.4 million people traveled to our country for those same reasons. Spain has some 6,000 subsidiaries of Spanish companies with business abroad that employ about 800,000 people and generate an annual turnover of 200,000 million euros. Most of it is concentrated in America (404,000 people), Europe (273,000 people) and Asia (60,000 people).
Spain is the second country that exports the most in the European Union, only behind Germany. The export of goods and services accounts for 34.7 percent of GDP; And that places us as the eleventh country in the world in service exports and the sixteenth world merchandise exporter.