The general secretary of the PS defended, this Monday, that it is necessary to stop looking at the State as a kind of obstacle to economic development and that the Portuguese economy has enough potential to know how to make good decisions.
“We often look at the State as a kind of obstacle to economic development. We have to change the way we see the State in its role in the transformation of economies. States with good policies are in fact one of the main instruments to transform an economy,” said Pedro Nuno Santos.
The socialist leader participated this Monday, by videoconference, in the “Reindustrialização” day that takes place in Vila Nova de Gaia, in the district of Porto, a session in which he stated that Portugal must better concentrate its investments and bets.
“I believe in the potential of the Portuguese economy, let us know how to choose, make decisions, concentrate resources in areas, in sectors with a future. and that already have scientific, technological and business capabilities installed in Portugal,” he stated.
Previously, Pedro Nuno Santos pointed out that the European Union (EU) “finally realized” that “it needed to reindustrialize and have an industry to stop the continuous loss to other areas of the globe, modernizing its economy” and hence the creation of tools. relaxation of state aid rules.
“It’s a double-edged stick. They are an opportunity, but they can also be a problem (…). Portugal does not have the capacity to compete with large economies and that is why there are risks in this flexibility. However, we have to explore the degrees of freedom provided by the new rules on state aid,” he considered.
In this sense, Pedro Nuno Santos argued that the Portuguese Government must equip itself with a team fully specialized in the rules of European competition that allows it to design public policies that take advantage of the degrees of freedom allowed by state aid regulations.
“This work has not been done as necessary in Portugal,” he said.
At the conference organized by Rádio Renascença and the Gaia City Council, the general secretary of the PS also defended that “only a more sophisticated economy can retain qualified young people,” adding that young Portuguese emigrate not only because of the higher salaries in the northern Europe, for example, but because in Portugal they cannot find a way out.
“We are one of the countries that trains the most engineers, but we do not have an economy that absorbs engineers,” he exemplified.
Pedro Nuno Santos also considered that Portugal should change its strategy regarding incentives policy because its policy is “much more comprehensive” and addresses “many more areas than what happens in the rest of the EU.”
“When our incentive policy is not selective enough, we cannot have firepower in any area,” he considered.
Energy, the automobile industry, transport, in particular railways, metallurgy and industrial equipment, as well as sustainable agriculture and health (medicines and equipment), were the areas listed by the leader of the socialists.
Pedro Nuno Santos also considered that Portugal must “move from the logic of supporting exports to a logic of supporting internationalization.”
Source: Observadora
