Portugal’s Finance Minister Mário Centeno was at the Harvard Club in New York earlier this week at the start of a roadshow to ‘attract investment.’
Centeno informed his audience that Brussels ‘trusts Portugal’ due to the country’s political and fiscal stability and its intention to implement reforms to make Portugal an attractive country for investment.
The US, said the minister, is the fifth largest market for Portuguese exports "and is a very important economic partner."
"Portuguese products have been very well received in the US," he claimed, adding that also there had been strong growth in tourism from the US.
Centeno explained that a wide range of reforms were being implemented in Portugal, including the modernisation of public administration, "I believe that the continuation of these reforms can increase Portugal’s growth. This is understood by the European Commission."
"Portugal is a small country and very exposed to what is happening abroad. The economic recovery is timid. It's a new process, we need to give it time," said the minister, referring to his view that already there was “strict public expenditure control,” which will have raised a few eyebrows.
Centeno said the country will have financial stability and stressed that Portugal has a well-trained workforce, while admitting that many young skilled people has emigrated.
Wall Street’s opinion of Portugal, in the light of the Bank of Portugal’s recent transfer of over €2 billion in debts from Noco Banco to BES, thus wiping out many significant US investments, is that the country can not be trusted for as long as this sort of State sponsored theft continues.
Another area for US concern is the chaotic Portuguese legal system that is known to take years to resolve cases and the regulatory role of the Bank of Portugal which clearly is not effective.
US venture capital companies have been active in trying to buy undervalued Portuguese assets but, as in the case of the Comporta estate, the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the Espírito Santo empire, sound offers are rejected for seemingly nefarious reasons.
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And, with the microphone off - whispered into napkins, one participant reported hearing - 'Not having a functioning and effective Portuguese Bank Regulatory system of our own we Portuguese have been relying for several years on foreign Banking regulators to turn up wrongdoing. This seems to be working quite well in that it has crashed all our home grown Banks. Allowing us another plus - a fresh start under new management'.
But it yet again raises the point why was the British Government, fully aware of the dire situation - that Portugal had no concept of Duty of Care whatsoever, was not also warning its citizens? Instead hopelessly assuming Portugal, and similar countries, could be trusted to begin to behave ! Resulting now in the energy behind Brexit.