Car sector exports crash 21%

Portugal’s automative sector saw exports plummet by 21% in 2020 compared to 2019 because of the general shutdown in production at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

For those companies that manufacture cars, such as Autoeuropa, production fell 23.4% while car component companies saw proaction slide by 20%.
These findings are according to a study undertaken by Deloitte for Compete 2020 and Mobinov – Cluster Automóvel which was published on 6 April.
“Exports from the cluster suffered a significant impact because of the pandemic since most of its products are exported to countries where there was a fall in demand,” states the study.
Despite the contraction, exports from car part suppliers and manufacturers suffered a fall that was not as steep than that seen in the main export markets due to a gain in competitiveness and share in these markets showing the cluster’s resilience,” according to the report.
Looking at the sector as a whole, the document concluded that the “reduction in the demand for cars because of the Covid-19 pandemic had a large impact on the Automotive Industry Cluster in Portugal. In 2020, business turnover and exports suffered significant falls considering the exporting nature of the sector in Portugal.”
In terms of employment, the industry employed a total of 90,500 workers in 2019, an amount that shrank by almost 4% in 2020 to 87,000 employees (79,000 in the car parts sector and almost 8,000 in car manufacturing).