Portugal’s entrepreneurs appeal to citizens to “value our brands”
Portugal’s entrepreneurs have sent out an appeal to the government and “all the Portuguese people” – “please value what is ours”.
It is an appeal that also targets the European Union/Commission, hoping to persuade Brussels to look at rules and regulations with a new eye now that the bloc is suddenly assailed from all sides.
National businesses have always been threatened by ‘cheap imports’ from territories free of Europe’s myriad controls, but the latest developments from the other side of the Atlantic have prompted the call to truly ring in some changes. At least, that is the message coming from one of the world’s largest trade fairs for household goods, held recently in Frankfurt.
Expresso travelled to the Ambiente fair, as the guest of Leiria business association NERLEI.
Donald Trump may be waging a trade war; Germany may be in crisis, but producers in Portugal are still very much in business, and thinking on their feet, if not outside the box.
“Our eyes have a serious tendency to look more at what isn’t ours. It’s essential to change this so that we can value what we do, produce more wealth and thus have a bigger cake to distribute to everyone,” Rui Pereira of Artame, a metal kitchenware factory in Baguim do Monte, Gondomar, tells the paper.
It is a mindset echoed by many of the other exhibitors at the event, most of whom have been in business through ‘thick and thin’ and understand the importance of strategies.
Businesses need Europe to work with them, not against them
Ana Luísa Roque, CEO of Porcel – a porcelain company in Oliveira do Bairro, with 110 workers and sales of €4.5 million a year, 97% of which are abroad – told Expresso: “We need less bureaucracy. It is essential that the European Commission’s demands don’t weigh down our industry because that distorts competition.”
The way Ana Luísa Roque sees it, Europe is “always demanding more from those who produce in Europe”, leaving those who don’t free to reap the advantage.
Marcelo Franco Sousa, director of Matcerâmica, also exhibiting in Frankfurt, goes so far as to advocate the re-thinking of Europe’s decarbonisation strategy.
“It is shooting us in the foot” (arguably both feet), says the manager of the Batalha ceramics company with 600 workers and a turnover of €23 million to 35 countries.
Sousa has no argument against the need to put an end to fossil fuels, but “Brussels must not forget that, at the moment, we have no technical alternatives, and we end up being doubly penalised because we have to pay carbon emission taxes which reduce our competitiveness, yet we see Europe open to everything that comes in from outside; from producers who do not respect the same rules, and who even continue to invest in coal-fired power stations”.
In Portugal and Europe, consumers buy cheaper ceramic ware that comes from territories like Asia where the rules governing practices are far more relaxed.
“We have the best production practices in the world, yet we consume everything that is made without following those practices,” Sousa puts the problem into a nutshell.
“By 2030, we will have to pay emission taxes while investing in the energy transition at the same time – meaning we are being forced to pay twice for the same thing, which is leading some (businesses) to choose to place orders and even open factories outside Europe.
“Why aren’t there carbon taxes imposed on imports from these producers? And when it comes to crockery, European manufacturers have to comply with food safety directives, which are fundamental to guaranteeing consumer health, but anyone can import pieces that don’t fulfil these parameters. So, the competition isn’t fair,” he stresses, arguing a case for crockery to be labelled as complying with EU standards, just as household appliances have an energy label.
But they need Brussels ‘on their side’.
“What is really crucial for us at the moment is that the support for a €400,000 investment already approved by (European fund) COMPETE actually reaches the company,” says João Xavier, founder and director of Jomazé, a ceramics factory in Alcobaça with 60 workers and an annual turnover of €2.1 million, 95% of which is in exports.
Elsa Almeida, CEO of decorative tableware producer Perpétua, Pereira & Almeida, also in Alcobaça, is in the same boat: “We are exhibiting here in 2025 without having received the support related to our presence in 2024 – and it’s crucial to help us in this internationalisation effort, even though it doesn’t cover everything.”
Perpétua, Pereira & Almeida employs 70 people, has a turnover of €2.5 million and exports 98% of its goods.
At Herdmar, Fernando Castro, brand manager and fourth generation representative of the cutlery factory founded by his great-grandfather in Guimarães, insists that “European industry needs to reinvent itself”, but that it cannot do so without the reimbursement of investment aid arriving on time.
In general, funds arrive late, “affect cash flow, create constraints and make it difficult to do business”, he tells Expresso.
Will Brussels listen?
This is the question. When one considers how long the bloc takes to act, in almost every situation, the reality is that if it does listen, it may only do so when the situation becomes a crisis.
At Arfai, in Aljubarrota, which employs 100 people and has an annual turnover of €4.1 million – again mostly in exports – founder and CEO Carla Moreira emphasises concerns over energy costs. “They are our second biggest production cost, after labour, and they have to be controlled,” she says, still in the wake of the “sharp rises in the recent past”, fearful “of seeing gas and electricity prices skyrocket again at any moment”.
NERLEI took 65 Portuguese companies to Ambiente, sharing a joint stand where fado music was also played. Another 40 companies exhibited separately, bringing Portuguese participation in the event to a new record.
But the truth is there could be so much more support gained from the domestic market. It is not so much a question of “make Portugal great again”, but “don’t sell Portugal out. It has so much still to offer”.
Source: Expresso newspaper
Economist argues case for “Brand Portugal”
As businesses and entrepreneurs fight for a level playing field, economist Francisco Jaime Quesado argues the case for a strong BRAND PORTUGAL.
“Never before have Portuguese talents scattered around the world been so crucial to showing that there is a new capital of nationally-based strategic competence. At a time of complex crisis, this commitment to this new endeavour is a sign of confidence in Portuguese competitiveness and in the very real ability to change the economic development model for the future once and for all”, he writes in Dinheiro Vivo.
“Portugal really needs to boost its BRAND (…) Public policy must be clear – structural investment in sectors and territories must be prioritised, otherwise objective results will not be achieved (…) A clear definition of the strategic areas in which we must invest (there will have to be few of them and they will have a clear impact on the economy); the selection, according to criteria of strategic rationality, of the territorial areas in which we are going to act and the effective mobilisation of active networks for the strategic consolidation of existing skills in order to attract investment and strengthen global value chains.”
The messages are coming in thick and fast. It is simply a question of them getting through to the right quarters.
