Health sector exports from Portugal hit €4Bn and 5% of GDP

Portugal’s health sector beat a new exports record in 2024 selling products worth just over €4Bn , 21.7% above the €3.3Bn posted in 2023.

This is according to data published by Portugal’s overseas trade and investment office, AICEP and based on statistics collected by the National Statistics Institute (INE) that show heath exports represented 5.1% of overseas sales.

Joaquim Cunha, Executive Director of Health Cluster Portugal told the business daily Negócios that “results have grown year-on-year and have always exceeded our expectations

However, he predicts that in 2025 these increases are likely to slow or even reverse. “Next year it is possible that we’ll see a fall.”

The reason being was that the export amounts and revenues achieved in 2024 were on the back of an unexpected uptick in the German economy.

“There was a very big jump in the German economy that was not expected,” he said, highlighting a surge in German purchases from Portugal, which increased from €278 million in 2023 to €1.1Bn in 2024. “The result was surprising given the 0.2% contraction of Europe’s economy last year”, he said.

Health Cluster Portugal, which joins companies, universities, associations and other entities in the sector, does not yet have data that can explain the unusual 295% increase in sales to Germany.

But Joaquim Cunha stressed that “if it hadn’t been for that we would have had one digit growth” and “It could have just been a fluke.”

“If that was the case, then that’s €600, €700 or €800 million that we won’t be seeing next year”.