Nearly 50% of Portugal’s GDP generated by exports

Portugal ’s exports market is doing better than ever, now representing 49% of the country’s GDP.

The Minister of the Economy, António Costa e Silva, said on Thursday that Portugal’s exports would hit 49% of GDP by the end of 2022.
Portugal’s ‘recovery Tsar’ who drew up the country’s plan for the digitalisation and modernisation of the economy, with the aim of making its companies more competitive, agile and exports-orientated, said that the data showed that Portugal’s economy did not only rest on tourism.
Addressing parliament on the day that the essential outlines of Portugal’s State Budget 2023 was ‘generally approved’ by MPs, António Costa e Silva emphasised the “positive performance of the Portuguese economy” throughout the year so far, pointing to the evolution of private consumption and net overseas demand.
“We will get to the end of the year with exports representing 49% of GDP, and of this, 20% corresponds to tourism”, he said.
“This means that the Portuguese economy does not just rely on tourism” as had been seen from the “extraordinary performance of the metalworks and footwear sectors” pointing to exports of more than 40 million pairs of shoes.
António Costa Silva expects that the country will beat all export records in these industries in 2022.
“The confidence that Portuguese and international companies have in the national economy can be seen from that the fact that in the first half of 2022 Portugal attracted €16Bn of investment, an absolute record in its history”, he added.
The minister said that the value of these investments had reached €8Bn in the first quarter alone, the “best ever results for one quarter”.