Second Session: Sustainable infrastructure and public–private cooperation

The second session of the 5th Spain-India Forum presented success stories and opportunities in infrastructure development that minimizes environmental impact through energy efficiency. Participants included Shreyashee Nag, Senior Director of Business Development at HCLTech, as moderator; Nilanjan Gosh, Vice President of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF); Soumya Bhowmick, Senior Research Fellow on World Economies and Sustainability at ORF's Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED); Jordi Torrent, Strategy Director of the Port of Barcelona; and Alejandro Jiménez, Global Director of Business Development at Acciona Infrastructures.

As Shreyashee Nag noted in her introduction, “We are witnessing a fundamental shift in how we conceive of the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure: from linear, resource-intensive models, we are moving towards circular, resilient, and, above all, digitally connected models.”

Nilanjan Ghosh opened the debate by highlighting the role of think tanks in bridging the knowledge and funding gap for resilient infrastructure. The ORF vice-president noted that “reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 will require €120 trillion, but only €13 trillion will be mobilized under current trends.” He also denounced the imbalance between mitigation and adaptation projects: “85% of development finance institutions’ portfolios are allocated to mitigation, while only between 5% and 7% is invested in adaptation.”

Ghosh proposed that India and Spain collaborate on three fronts: solar energy, green hydrogen, and digital infrastructure, although he also warned that “the public good nature of adaptive infrastructure prevents it from generating perceptible returns, which discourages private investment.”

For her part, Soumya Bhowmick analyzed the three essential steps toward sustainable infrastructure: how to invest in it, how to implement it, and finally, how to protect it against increasingly frequent extreme weather events. “If we have the right sequence and steps, private capital will flow naturally, because the return on investment will speak for itself.” The ORF researcher cited building renovation as an example and noted that “in this area, the alliance between India and Spain can be very beneficial, given the long history of Spain contributes in terms of energy and water spending. And what does India contribute? Low-cost engineering and production scale.” Bhowmick proposes a bilateral collaboration model based on six factors: financial viability, risk sharing, innovative instruments, clear data, public guarantees, and equity.Jordi Torrent, in turn, offered a detailed overview of bilateral maritime trade. Currently, maritime trade between Spain and India amounts to €3.8 billion, “representing approximately 90% of total trade between the two countries.” Of this, the Port of Barcelona handles approximately 40%, making India the port's fourth largest trading partner. The main products imported from India are chemicals, coal, and machinery; Spanish exports include plastics, paper, and wood.

The executive explained the Port of Barcelona's decarbonization initiatives: rail intermodality, onshore power supply, the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transition fuel, and renewable energy production at port facilities.

Next, Alejandro Jiménez, Global Director for Business Development at Acciona Infrastructures, presented the Casablanca (Morocco) desalination plant, developed by his company, as a success story. Shreyashee Nag described it as “a perfect example of smarter, fairer, and future-proof infrastructure.”

According to Alejandro Jiménez, this plant “is the world’s largest powered entirely by wind energy, with the capacity to supply 7 million people.”² The project, with a 30-year concession, offers water at less than €0.50 per cubic meter, thus dispelling myths about the cost and environmental impact of desalination.

Regarding India, the Acciona executive lamented the barriers to entry in the country, such as the lack of transparency in bidding processes, excessive bureaucracy, and the complex tax framework. He proposed the adoption of international standards to improve the governance of public procurement and attract private investment.

The debate also analyzed the North-South divide in the context of climate finance. In this regard, Nilanjan Ghosh pointed out that “if 1% of global wealth could be mobilized, it would cover the entire funding gap for the Sustainable Development Goals and be allocated proportionally.” He also proposed a trilateral cooperation model between India and Spain. and third countries, and to strengthen Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a source of funding. “Economic diplomacy can work through city twinning, memoranda of understanding, and the transfer of human and technological capital,” he asserted.

The session concluded with a call from Shreyashee Nag to maintain sustainability as the foundation of future infrastructure, and the panelists summarized the key factor for strengthening the India-Spain relationship in a single concept. For Soumya Bhowmick, it was standardization; for Nilanjan Ghosh, exchange (of ideas, talent, and technology); for Alejandro Jiménez, public-private collaboration; for Jordi Torrent, international economic law; and for Shreyashee Nag, digital transformation.

Speakers in the second session