Portuguese exporters could make €13Bn

An economist for Euler Hermes and shareholder of insurance company COSEC says that Portuguese exporters have an opportunity to generate €13Bn in export business in 2021.

Ludovic Subran told the online news outlet Dinheiro Vivo that in 2020 goods exporters lost around €6Bn compared with to the previous year. “However, because of the strong fall in the exports of services (mostly to do with transport and travel because of lockdowns), we estimate that exports have fallen €24Bn on 2019,” he says.
The economist thinks that exporting companies could “recover part of their losses for 2020 with gains of €13Bn”.
The services sector, he says, should drive this recovery, although the sale of goods should also pay and important part. Euler Hermes believes that the transport and agricultural food sectors will lead the recovery in terms of national exports, followed by textiles.
Last year, was one of the worst years for textile exports worldwide in living memory, particularly with a fall of around 15% according to date from Euler Hermes.
This sector is divided into various segments, with the clothing segment suffering from a fall in retail sales of 90% during confinement in some European markets and was also the slowest to recover after an easing in restrictions.
The economist is in no doubt that in 2021 “we’ll see the industry return to growth, but the continuity of just retail activity will not be enough to return to pre-crisis levels in the short term,” he says.
Despite this, the savings accumulated by many families could be a deciding factor in textile exports. Euler Hermes estimates that Portuguese families in aggregated terms saved around €9Bn.
But the savings made by Portugal’s main trading partners Spain (€40Bn), UK (€36Bn), France (€93Bn) will be much higher.
“This means there is potential to stimulate domestic and external demand when restrictions are lifted and uncertainties reduced through vaccination programmes,” concludes Ludovic Subran.