Economists launch reindustrialisation manifesto

One of Portugal’s oldest civic associations, which debates questions surrounding the economy, has launched a reindustrialisation manifesto aimed at saving Portugal’s economy.

SEDES (The Association for Economic and Social Development) whose members include illustrious economists such as Mira Amaral, Abel Mateus and Clemente Pedro Nunes, is calling for the country to change its economic focus away from a hydrogen strategy and towards the production of transactional goods.
They say that the Government needs to urgently change the direction of its economic policy and Portugal’s economic direction not just because of the effects of Covid-19 on the economy, but more on a structural level by establishing a basis for economic reform to kickstart a sustained development of the country.
The golden rule in this manifesto, according to Abel Mateus in an interview with the business daily Jornal Económico, is the “industrialisation for the production of transactional goods” as a way of “launching economic investment, stimulating companies and fermenting a favourable environment for research and development and the return of foreign investment.”
In the words of former Industry minister Luís Mira Amaral, another of the figures backing the manifesto, “We need to multiply the example of car manufacturing plant AutoEuropa, a company that exports and has developed a supply chain that in turn can also export (vehicle) parts.”
SEDES, founded in 1970 and presided over by chairman João Salgueiro launched the manifesto ‘The Urgency for a Strategy for Growth’ on 9 July.