AICEP president encourages Portuguese exporters to look to Japan
The president of the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP) has singled out Japan as a market with vast untapped potential for Portuguese exporters.
Speaking on Monday at Expo 2025 in Osaka, where Portugal marked both its National Day and World Portuguese Language Day, Ricado Arroja pointed to research showing that roughly 20% of Japanese imports come from sectors where Portugal has a clear competitive edge.
“That’s a universe of more than €130 billion,” he explained. “Even capturing a small fraction of that would represent a major step forward in the economic relationship between our two countries.”
While Arroja is due to continue the mission in Tokyo later this week, the groundwork began in Osaka, he told Lusa news agency.
“Fortunately, Japan has many cities with large technology companies and an international dimension that we are interested in having in Portugal. Therefore, the economic mission is an excellent opportunity to complement all the work being done in the cultural sphere, which is supported by this magnificent pavilion we have here in Osaka,” the AICEP president said, referring to the Portuguese Pavilion at Expo 2025.
While AICEP is keen on growing Portuguese exports to Japan, there is already significant business activity between the two countries. Arroja highlighted ongoing Japanese investments in areas like electronics, agriculture, and energy, calling Japan “a sea of opportunities” for Portuguese exporters and investors alike.
According to Arroja, the current goal is to promote Portugal in “areas where the Japanese currently have a keen interest in investing”, such as renewable energy. “At the moment there is some interest in the developments we have in mind in Portugal, for example in offshore wind power, and we also have investments in the area of biofuels, which could be attractive to the Japanese”.
In addition, “we have life sciences, where Japan faces very significant demographic challenges in the future”, some of which it shares with Portugal. Biotechnology, digital medicine and clinical analysis were other areas singled out by the agency boss. “We also have the blue economy, which is also the theme that economically frames our participation here in Osaka, so there is no shortage of topics to discuss with multinationals”, he says.
Arroja added that, knowing that the Japanese think in the long term, he is not expecting ‘immediate results’.
However, “let there be no doubt: Japan is a capital exporter, it is a creditor country from a financial point of view and, obviously, it is a country with which Portugal has very important historical ties and all this added together means that Japan must be a strategic partner for Portugal in the future,” he said
Arroja is set to hold several working meetings during the mission, though he didn’t reveal names. Still, expectations are high – more than a dozen companies and institutions are involved.
As a sign of growing collaboration, Arroja pointed to Tapada do Outeiro, a power station partially owned by Japanese investors, which played a key role in restarting Portugal’s grid after last week’s blackout.
Japanese firms are also making their mark in Portugal’s agri-food sector, with the AICEP boss commending the “remarkable work being carried out in tomato paste and tomato preparation work, not only in production but also in research and development.”
This is the “innovative Portugal that we want to project to the world so that the country becomes an economy that blends the traditional with the innovative, so that we can be in the top league, in the top international division in terms of the economy, adding all our cultural heritage,” he concluded.
Expo 2025 Osaka started on April 13 and ends on October 13.
