Deputy Prime Minister Paulo Portas today responded to IMF criticism that Portuguese exports are unsustainable.
Portas said that export figures for 2013 showed a growth rate of 5.7% over the 2012 figure, which was a very positive result and ahead of national and international forecasts.
Paulo Portas was talking to the media at the headquarters of the Agency for Foreign Investment and Trade in Portugal (AICEP) about the balance of exports of goods and services last year which grew in value to €68,200 million.
The Deputy Prime Minister commented that “last year Portuguese companies confirmed their export capacity precisely at the time when the country needed it most."
Exports of goods rose by 4.9% and services by 7.7% which demonstrates a balanced growth in Portugal’s best year ever for exports with foreign sales accounting for 41% of GDP, compared with 39 % in 2012, 36 % in 2011 and 31% in 2010.
The number of exporters rose by 700 companies to 22,685. Paulo Portas highlighted the great job they are doing and referred to the current leader of AICEP, Pedro Reis, as a ‘magnificent president’ who never-the-less is leaving the agency. Reis’s replacement is not yet known.
The International Monetary Fund’s prediction was for an increase of just 2.9% in exports last year and it has stated that Portugal’s export growth rate is unsustainable as it has been "primarily driven by fuel exports while imports in 2014 have started to grow in line with a recovery in domestic demand.”
Pedro Reis said the trade surplus was 104.4% last year with imports accounting for €65,400 million leading to a cash surplus of €2.8 billion, "the first time this has happened since 1943."
The wartime export figure harkens to a time when Portugal, officially neutral in WWII, enjoyed buoyant exports to both sides of the conflict.
Dictator Salazar exported to the British selling them rubber and more importantly wolfram, a highly prized raw material. Salazar also had no qualms in selling wolfram to Germany, until June 1944 at least, enabling both sides to create tungsten to be used in weapons manufacture, the era's equivalent of depleted uranium.
