"If we focus the execution and the rationale of the decisions very much on capitalizing and financing the companies, promoting innovation, helping with internationalization, removing bureaucracy, we can make a quantum leap at a speed that is not possible in much larger and more complex economies. Let's take advantage of our size and base our priority on the agility of the Portuguese economy", said the minister.

Pedro Reis was speaking at the opening of the annual conference of the Portuguese Association of Metallurgical, Metalworking and Related Industries (AIMMAP), which is taking place today at the University of Aveiro.

Before an audience of businesspeople, academics and students, the minister said that it is necessary to rescue Portugal's ambition, stating that the country "has all the conditions to be an exporting and internationalized power based on innovation and talent".

"If we can make this happen, we will be positioning ourselves and conquering the future", he said.

In his speech, the minister also said that it is up to the public sector to trigger "an agenda of responsible reformism", defending a commitment to qualification, talent and knowledge to overcome the challenge of productivity, competitiveness and scale.

"These are the challenges that we must win, without which everything we do is ungrateful or sufficient, and if we ensure all this, everything else is possible", he noted.

He also defended a commitment to continued investment, adding that one of Portugal's challenges is the challenge of consistency, because "we think well, but we get distracted quickly, and greater agility in implementing the Recovery and Resilience Plan and PT 2030.

The minister also highlighted the "absolutely crucial role for the future path" of the metallurgical and metalworking sector, comparing it to a "backbone of the Portuguese economy".

On the same occasion, the President of AIMMAP, Vítor Neves, argued that the country and the economy need a "profound legislative and procedural simplification", arguing that in Portugal there is "a tangle of laws and processes that make life difficult for the State itself, but above all for citizens, taxpayers and companies".

"This very high level of bureaucracy means that the European bloc is becoming less and less competitive, which can be easily proven by the successive anaemic growth rates in Europe, systematically lower than those of its competing blocs", he noted.

In the specific case of Portugal, Vítor Neves stressed that this model leads to "a large, inefficient, slow and costly State" and, on the side of companies, it forces "disproportionate operating and structure costs that harm their competitiveness".

The president of AIMMAP also defended that it is necessary to value work and investment, adding that he sees "with great concern the notion that is beginning to form that working less is producing more" and defended public policies to support investment for companies "to be able to make significant leaps in terms of productivity".

The spokesperson for the metallurgical and metalworking industrialists also said that this is one of the most dynamic sectors of Portuguese industry and the most important export industry, with around 23 thousand companies and 245 thousand jobs.

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