CIP warned this Monday that, although the turnover of Portuguese companies is growing, the margin is decreasing, due to the current context, criticizing the levels of execution of PRR funds destined for the private sector.
We distinguish between billing and results. Right now, the volume of business is growing, but the margin, the result is decreasing”, said the Vice President of the Portuguese Business Confederation (CIP), Armindo Monteiro, at a press conference, to present the results of the 20th survey. carried out within the framework of the “Vital Signs” project, developed by the confederation, in alliance with ISCTE’s Marketing FutureCast Lab.
According to the results of the survey, released this Monday, in average terms there was a 45% increase in sales and services provided in the first quarter this year compared to the first quarter of 2019, the period before the pandemic.
The increase “was sustained by the growth of large, medium and small companies”, while, on the contrary, 35% of the companies that indicated a reduction in sales in this period are micro-enterprises.
The Barometer data indicates that the companies that decreased their sales (26%) had a average drop of 32% in your turnover and the companies that increased their sales (45%) had an average increase of 28%.
The results also show that, on average, about 35% of the companies registered an increase in their operating costs between 16% and 35% and 18% registered an increase of less than 5% in their costs.
Asked about the extent to which the company is passing on cost increases to sales prices, 7% of companies, on average, said that they had fully done so.
In average terms, the majority (46%) said that they had a moderate impact, that is, they suffered less than half of the increase in costs,” he said, indicating that this situation is mainly affected by large and medium-sized companies, with more than 50 % indicating this option.
Already about 25% of the companies indicated that they did not increase prices.
“Companies are making a great effort not to pass on their cost increases to the price,” with “the aim of curbing inflation, not to enter into an inflationary spiral,” Armindo Monteiro stressed, considering that “it is done at the expense of of the results of the companies”.
There is a degradation of the patrimony of the companies”, he underlined.
The CIP official also criticized the execution of funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), pointing out that “only 262 million euros” of the amount allocated to the private sector are executed, that is, “just over 5%”, while of the funds allocated to the State, the percentage rises to “almost 50%”.
Armindo Monteiro also said that of the amount approved for companies “nine million euros have been paid so far0.18% is the amount paid”.
According to the results, 67% of businessmen and senior managers consider that the PRR will not make sense for their company’s activity, 6% consider that it can be significant or 3% very significant.
According to the results of the barometer, at the beginning of July, 84% of the companies consider that the support programs are below, or very below, what they need, while “16% consider that it is up to difficulties”.
“In the opinion of businessmen and senior managers of companies regarding support programs, 77% consider them bureaucratic or very bureaucratic, and only 5% of all companies consider them little or not bureaucratic at all,” the barometer also says. .
Of the companies surveyed 22% applied in the last three months some measure to support the economy.
Of these, 54% did not receive a response, 41% had their request approved and 5% rejected.
Of those approved, 58% received support and 42% have not yet done so.
Of the 78% of companies that did not apply, 41% indicated that they did not meet the necessary eligibility conditions as a reason and 23% did not.
The survey included a sample of 258 companies, the majority (45%) from the industry and energy, other services (23%) and commerce (10%) sectors.
Source: Observadora
