Spain on Friday named Arancha Gonzalez Laya, an international trade expert, as foreign minister replacing Josep Borrell who last year became the EU's foreign policy chief.

Gonzalez was Pascal Lamy's chief of staff at the World Trade Organization between 2005 and 2013, before becoming Executive Director of the International Trade Centre, her current job, where she has focused on raising the competitiveness of companies in developing economies.

In Spanish foreign affairs "economic diplomacy will be the priority", Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's office said announcing the appointment.

Gonzalez, who also speaks English, French, German, Italian and Basque, starts her job Monday along with the other cabinet members in the coalition government of Socialists and the leftist Podemos party.

Sanchez takes over as head of a minority coalition government after winning investiture by a razor-thin margin of just two votes. But with only 155 of the parliament's 350 seats, the new government will struggle to push through legislation, with its first order of business to pass the long-overdue state budget. It will be Spain's first coalition government since the 1930s.