The companies still do not have the money of the PRR – or alert the president of the Executive Commission of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), Paulo Moita de Macedo. For this reason, he believes that it is necessary to speed up the availability of the Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PRR): “No PRR foresees 140 million investments in various factors such as technology, transportation… Or more importantly, to materialize. The amount of cash in companies is still very tiny. We have a large number of projects to approve”, he stated at the opening of Encontro Fora da Caixa, in Famalicão.
To his presentation debruçou-se on ten factors: the projections of economic growth magazines in baixa and high volatility of two financial markets; increase in the price of many essential products that are difficult to substitute; wage pressure; higher nominal sworn taxa, plus lower real taxa; EU/China geopolitical strategy and supply chains; vulnerability of companies (namely, alteration of exports / imports; alteration of the margin due to energy prices, other commodities and sales prices; financing conditions and new opportunities / new instruments and PPR); chemical and pharmaceutical products, iron and steel, ceramics, transportation, food and agriculture in the most affected sectors; o impact on banks may remain contained, but liquidity should be less; public and private sector measures and private investment in training, governance, cybersecurity and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance).
Not that he says I respect the economic growth, or the president of the Executive Commission of the CGD calls attention to “a curious factor”: “As reviews face the year in which we are growing, or seja, a mayor projecção, que é da Last week from Banco de Portugal (BdP), it is the highest since 2021, on the same line as 2020. Such a significant growth was not expected. There is a growth reduction projection for the major regions of the world, especially Europe, because of the war”. Paulo Moita de Macedo confirms that “2022 will be positive”, however, he warns that “we are afraid to see what will happen in the 4th quarter” because – he admits – “the greater volatility and the more adverse projection” will be for 2023.
Not that he says respect to the impact of the war in Ukraine, Paulo Moita de Macedo highlights or cares for energy and the increase in the price of raw materials. It is sublined that “the increase in prices creates a salary pressure not only because people have less available income and higher inflation, but also because the thoughts are going to increase 5% not next year”.
As for the de jure taxes, the president of the Executive Commission of the CGD proclaims that “we have historically low de jure taxes, which are going to increase.” A single duvida is “or level that is going to be”. And, in view of the possibility of increasing it very much, he warns: “If the taxes will rise to extremely high values, it is going to give origin to poorly served”. Além disso, it will also have an impact on companies: “If the taxes will increase two percentage points, having the median count or division of the companies, it could represent a cost increase of 1 or 2%.
Paulo Moita de Macedo still considers that Portugal continues to have a “very significant” public divide or that, together with the climatic divide, it means “a very large weight for future generations”. The president of the Executive Commission of the CGD highlighted the lack of competitiveness of the Portuguese economy, affirming that it is necessary to improve our context, management practices and training of managers.
“Salaries will only increase for the less qualified”
In the last decade, the salaries of two graduates decreased 11%. This is one of the conclusions of the study on the State of the Nation carried out by the José das Neves Foundation. For this reason, Carlos Oliveira, president-executive of the Foundation, is peremptory: “More qualifications will not help us to have a better life”.
Carlos Oliveira guarantees that Portugal has made a lot of progress in Education since April 25, 1974, but “it doesn’t change when we compare ourselves with other EU countries”. Currently – he affirms – “we are two countries with the lowest wages in the EU and the wages will only increase, on average, for the less qualified and much by way of the increase in the minimum wage”. However, he assures that there is a direct correlation between the qualifications of the workers and managers and the productivity of the companies. But, to have an impact, there needs to be a considerable number of qualified people: “Young people qualified in companies only differ in productivity when they are more than 40% of the workforce”, he assures. The lack of qualifications could be an explanation for the (still) low productivity of the country: “Portugal is the EU country with the lowest qualification level, two employers: 47.5%, two employers in Portugal did not finish secondary school, only for a while. or I teach basic. In the EU average, only 16.5% have low qualifications – Portugal has tripled”, affirms the president-executive of the José das Neves Foundation. Além said, “an increase in the qualification of two workers could mean an increase of 5% in the productivity of the company”.
Despite the low qualifications, there is also little commitment in training. According to the study carried out by the José das Neves Foundation, only 16.5% of Portuguese companies have some type of professional training and only 13% of two adults have had some training in the last year.
For Carlos Guimarães Pinto, an economist and deputy of the Liberal Initiative, “the more qualified a person is, the greater their capacity for abstract thinking” and “the fact of the matter is a population with little abstract thinking, which puts less pressure on politicians. to think about long-term policies”. Carlos Guimarães Pinto gives as an example the recent crisis in Health: “We began to discuss a question in a week to follow the terms of medical doctors in the urgências. It was only when the effects were going to be felt. There is a lack of incentive to anticipate problems because public opinion is not trained to anticipate problems. It is much easier to win public opinion, giving a short-term benefit, which yields votes, than to think about long-term policies, that people do not feel immediately, but they will have their effects.” Another example, in the opinion of the economist and deputy of the Liberal Initiative, is the reform of Social Security: “In 10 or 15 years, when the baby boomer generation begins to reform, we have been unable to accumulate capital for the challenges that this generation is going to trace, and that we are going to solve the problem. But this problem must have been solved 10 years ago”.
As for qualifications, Carlos Guimarães Pinto assures that it is not enough to bet on human capital, it is also necessary to attract financial capital: “We can have a factory with five machines and 50 engineers. We looked for the factory next door and we had 100 engineers. We hired more than 100, 200 or 500. But we will continue with five or better machines – as happened here – we will reduce to four or three machines, those engineers cannot win anymore. What is going to happen is that the 100th engineer is going to be productive to clean the factory. As Carlos said, there is little, it is time to train engineers to go to work for supermarkets”.
Companies reflect custos us clients
The war in Ukraine is having an impact on the industry and the companies do not have another alternative but to reflect the costs to the customers.
Manuel Martins, president of the administrative council of the Campicarn Group, says that, before the war, “raw material was more expensive, close to 40%”. Or conflict I saw trace “indirect impacts”. “In September our energy cost increased by 306%”, says Manuel Martins. “Hoje is 150% over time. Costs with energy represent 2% of the volume of business. Not at first more likely to be quite mossa, we ended up not formalizing a contract with a non-provider. It was expected that, in April 2022, the energy would drop drastically. I paid around 48 euros or kilowatt, now I pay 240, 250 euros”. In this context, the president of the board of directors of Grupo Campicarn admits that he has two options: “we lose the margin and we run the risk of paying at the end of the year with a bad result or we spend or price for the client”. For this reason, the group lost “5/10% on the margin, plus 90% of the price increase” passed to the client.
Já Ricardo Machado, president of the administration council of the RNM Group, from the chemical sector, assures that the impact of the war “is significant and immediate” and, he also points his finger at the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR): “The focus of the PRR it is in alternative energies, but they are going to be sustainable in 15/20 years and we have an immediate problem. The immediate solutions are not on top of the table. To Germany, Poland and Lithuania we do not say that they are going to build hydrogen factories; We say that we are going to reactivate coal plants, increase the lifespan of nuclear plants, build in 8 months the completion of LNG and we are going to build a hydrogen factory. Now that it is necessary to rethink how we want the competitiveness of our industries”. The president of the administration council of the RNM Group assures that the company is “having an impact not priced in the margins”.
Rogério Lourenço, partner-manager of Lourofood, a company in the queijos area, says that “o sector dos lacticínios once with an increase in costs it will be about a year, but, after the start of the war, the effects will fizeram-feel quite badly direct and indirect. Once “Ukraine is one of the world’s two largest producers of fertilizers, with greater scarcity or less access to two European producers of fertilizers, there is an assumption that there will be more for this year”, he warns. At Lourofood, it tries to make “poupanças en resources because maintaining the margins is very complicated” and foresees “a complicated third quarter”. Just like the other companies present, they did not discuss “the effects of the war in the industry”, Rogério Lourenço admits that he fears “passing the costs to the clients”.
Francisco Cary, administrator-executive of CGD, sees the perspective of the companies as clients of the public bank. According to Francisco Cary, “the most affected sectors are agriculture, animal production, processing industry and transportation”. Within the transforming industry, the sectors that have “less adaptation capacity” due to the fact of “there are lower margins” are “agriculture, animal production, animal industry, textile manufacturing, clothing, pulp and paper, metal products, manufacturing of equipment, transportation, etc. Not total, reference or executive-administrator of the CGD, “this represents more or less 20% of the credit portfolio” of the bank.
Despite admitting that “o cenario [das empresas] It is worrying”, Francisco Cary credits that “companies are reasonably capable of adapting to this situation”, due to the work that we have been doing since the first financial crisis, but “it is also going to depend on how long this situation will last” .
In the closure of the Encuentro Fora da Caixa, Pedro Abrunhosa sees you as a guest, under the rubric “It was not originally… or territory”, Luís Valente de Oliveira, former minister of several social-democratic governments, in particular, in the area of Planning and Administration of Territory, its area of specialization.
For Luís Valente de Oliveira, “the most urgent thing in this country” is “the indifference of the population”: “it is time for what is about to happen – the media cases occupy the discussions and the fundamental problems pass by the side”.
Specifically regarding regionalization, the former minister affirms that “it is possible to do decentralization”, but “it gives immense work”: “It is necessary to ensure that the people have the capacity or not to ensure the functions”, he affirms. In the opinion of Luís Valente de Oliveira, “we must ensure this transfer with any incentive to make these functions attractive. And the more attractive the better performed will be at the local level: works in schools, food supplements for children, definition of schedules, staff work regimen…”. On the other hand, he defends that there are responsibilities that should not be transferred to the local power, as in the case of the “linha geral dos programs de Educação”.
Source: Observadora
