Crisis and new international context could benefit Portugal

The current crisis in the Ukraine and shift in the geopolitical landscape could provide Portugal with economic and trading benefits.

This is according to the takeaways from speakers who took part in a conference “Portugal: “Portugal – Objective is Growth” various growth drivers were identified including renewable energies, geographical position and human capital as development potential and economic growth.
Although Portugal is facing its third consecutive economic shock because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the idea was suggested that the Portuguese economy has the best conditions to make the most of opportunities from the changes that the current crisis has set in train in order to strengthen economic growth.
At the conference organised by the Economists Association, four interlinked opportunities were identified in the new political and economic framework.
According to reports from Jornal Económico, the first is to get a return on the investment made by Portugal in renewable energies and the natural conditions it has to reinforce that investment such as sea and sun.
“The near future will decide the acceleration of the energy transition process and the EU will accelerate the transition process to ensure its energy independence” away from its current dependence on Russian natural gas and oil”, said the minister of State, Economy and Digital Transition, Pedro Siza Vieira, arguing that Portugal “could have a key position in the ‘new economy’”.
The President of Endesa Portugal, Nuno Ribeiro da Silva, who is a former Portuguese Secretary of State for Energy, believes that Portugal has the chance to change its historic energy dependency.
“For the first time it seems that we are on the right side of the barricade” he said. “The fact that we have a wide array of renewable sources is unusual”, he said, pointing out the energy production capacity from sun, wind, water, geothermal and the ocean as “a privilege that Portugal has”.
Portugal could be a supplier of renewable sources of energy for Europe, but also an entry point for natural gas from other destinations such as Africa and the US.