The Portuguese Economy faces major challenges and the focus on reindustrialization should be one of the priorities. At a time when we once again have to discuss the future, thirty years after Harvard Professor Michael Porter carried out an in-depth diagnosis of the Portuguese economy’s options, the central problem remains – either the economic model is completely reinvented or the competitiveness indicators will tend to progressively degrade. As 30 years ago, it is clear that Portuguese competitiveness is the biggest challenge in the coming times! Therefore, more than ever, the point is very clear – we have to reindustrialize to win.
Portugal lacks a sense of collective understanding that investing in dynamic competitiveness factors, in a territorially balanced logic and with clearly assumed strategic options is the only possible path for the future. Therefore, Portugal lacks a true integrated network for competitiveness capable of producing systemic effects in terms of the functioning of business organizations. The new paradigm of the Portuguese economy is rooted in this sense in the ability of results boosted by innovation and knowledge to be capable of inducing new forms of social and territorial integration capable of sustaining a global balance in the national system.
A brief x-ray of the sectoral matrix of the Portuguese economy unequivocally demonstrates the contextual changes produced over these thirty years, with direct impacts on the very organization of society. In addition to the development of a new service economy, eminently local in scope and with a reduced impact in terms of sustainable value creation, it is also worth mentioning the phenomenon of progressive deindustrialization, which has meanwhile been accentuated in recent years, and the tenuous development of new clusters associated with the dynamics of innovation and development.
The commitment to a New Industrial Portugal must give priority to two areas of systemic intervention – deep organizational and structural renewal of (mainly) industrial sectors and an integrated investment in the use of innovation as a lever for creating market value. The emergence of Artificial Intelligence and the profound change in companies’ operational management models will force us to reposition the concept of industrial management and make the value chain the true competitive reference for different businesses in their dimensions. A collaborative, networked agenda, centered on a true sense of intelligent innovation.
A new economy, capable of guaranteeing a new sustainable economy, will have to be based on a logic of focusing on clear priorities. Ensure that Innovation FDI is vital in attracting skills that induce an active structural renewal of the national economic fabric; effectively mobilize the centers of competence for this active approach in the global market – but do so taking into account criteria of strategic rationality defined at the outset, according to global public policy options, which take due account of the need to maintain coherent levels of social and territorial cohesion. Betting on a New Industrial Portugal means giving Portuguese competitiveness a new sense of opportunity.