Few European countries have suffered as many shocks and crises as Portugal in the last two and a half decades. “We have had a crash course in destruction and crisis reactions over the past 25 years. And was it creative destruction? Pedro Siza Vieira’s question marked the intervention of the former Minister of Economy at the congress of Portuguese travel agencies, where he took the opportunity to leave some advice for his successor in the portfolio that he heard at the audience, Pedro Reis.
“The most important task of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to ‘feel’ his government colleagues who have key portfolios for business, especially the environment, infrastructure, education and science.” It should have the role of “supplier to companies with whom they have critical folders,” he argued.
With a long starting point—”What do I think will happen in a month, why do I think this is important, and how do I see the near future of my country?”—Siza Vieira began by devaluing the short-term relevance of the State. Budget for 2025, whose approval is guaranteed.
Above all because, he maintains, “it is not in budgetary policy where we must find the key to development,” because the governments’ room for maneuver is very limited. Pedro Siza Vieira, who held the Economy portfolio between 2018 and January 2022, “looks with some amusement at the opposition’s criticism” of AD’s budget proposal because they are the same as those made to the socialist budgets. And the answers don’t differ either. They refer to European standards and attribute the greatest tax burden to increased wages and social contributions.
At the risk of being “unpopular”, the former minister proclaims that, contrary to what many say, “Portuguese fiscal pressure is below the European average.” We pay less, we earn less, but in proportion we pay less. Public spending is less.” For Siza Vieira, “growth depends on what we do in each of our companies having a high added value,” which means selling what we produce at a higher price.
Taking a tour of the evolution of the Portuguese economy and the shocks that had “very high costs for companies and families”, with destruction of savings and costs for taxpayers “who had to endure the crises of BES, Portugal Telecom and Banif” , Siza Vieira argues that the Portuguese economy is better prepared to take advantage of the opportunities of the reorganization of the world economy in the post-globalization period.
In addition to the clarification, the former minister points out the sectors that lived off the internal market and income – construction, financial services, telecommunications, energy – that have lost weight in the production of wealth to export sectors such as textiles with high added value. , automobiles and industrial machinery. And he concludes that the “destruction of wealth” generated by such successive shocks (globalization, EU enlargement to the east, financial crises and Covid-19) was creative.
Before an auditorium full of tour operators – the congress of the travel agency association took place in the Spanish city of Huelva – the former Minister of Economy also highlighted the sector as one of the winners of the cycle that, with relatively few resources, achieved Promote Portugal in differentiated markets. “In 15 years the sector has changed radically.”
And if today Portugal has a less indebted and more export-oriented economy, Siza Vieira highlights another advantage. “We are an extremely competitive and open economy. Any international company buys any company. Airports, energy, banks, they can buy everything from us. And there is no adverse reaction from our authorities.”
Rather than believing that those who carry out public functions have a magical solution to change what is wrong, “it is necessary to take what comes from behind and add something. It is important to continue.”
Siza Vieira highlighted Portugal’s energy sector, which according to him is one of the cheapest and cleanest in Europe, which attracts investors. But the Government must act in a concerted manner, remembering the recent case in which a project won a public auction. installing photovoltaic plants in a dam, which was indicated by the Portuguese Environment Agency as suitable to receive the equipment, saw the environmental impact study carried out by the same agency of the Ministry of the Environment fail.
It means untying those knots in the public administration and in the portfolios of other sectors served by the Minister of Economy, he concludes.
Source: Observadora
