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I started this blog nearly a year ago by commenting on the rather disappointing website (now changed) of Portugal’s main agency for the promotion of the internationalization of the Portuguese economy – AICEP, and on general aspects related to institutions and good governance (read). Still on Portugal, I dedicated a post to the efforts the country is making to take a leading role in the renewable energies industry (read). A report analysing possible areas of cooperation between Portugal and each one of the Portuguese-speaking African countries was here published too (read – in Portuguese).
Turkey’s troubled EU accession was here discussed in two different moments, from a pessimist (read) and from an optimist (read) perspective.
A day listening to Brazilian music led me to write about Brazil’s path to development as seen by the country’s samba-rap musicians, relative to the academic researchers (read).
The book ’Cod: the fish that changed the world’, offered to me as a present, proved to be not only enjoyable but also an insightful journey through the history of a fish that actually changed the world. It resulted in a post because the book shows one face of the disruptive impact of raising consumption on the sustainability of the planet (read).
In another post I comment on the impressive numbers behind bottled water consumption as well as a clever idea on how to fix that problem (read); the the decision of Shell to stop investing in wind energy was also commented but from a CSR perspective (read).
Overall, and unfortunately, not so many visitors passed by, and not that many comments were generated. Such is understandable given the irregular character of the blog. All that will change soon, as the focus will be readjusted.
I hope to see you around.
Este estudo procura analisar a actual importância e a dinâmica das relações entre Portugal e cada um dos cinco PALOP. Dada a limitação do presente relatório a um máximo de dez páginas, a forma escolhida para ir de encontro ao objectivo do estudo foi identificar e explorar uma questão pertinente para cada um dos PALOP nas relações com Portugal.
QUESTÕES:
Angola: Qual o potencial da cooperação entre Portugal e Angola no sector das energias renováveis?
Moçambique: Quais as implicações da adesão de Moçambique à Commonwealth para a Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa e para as relações com Portugal em geral?
Guiné-Bissau: Qual o potencial da indústria de caju e que papel pode Portugal ou a UE assumir na sua implementação e desenvolvimento?
Cabo Verde: Quais os efeitos do estreitamento de relações entre Cabo Verde e a UE, e qual o impacto nas as relações bilaterais com Portugal?
São Tomé e Príncipe: Qual a relevância, eficácia, eficiência, impacto e sustentabilidade da Ajuda Pública ao Desenvolvimento (APD ou cooperação) de Portugal a São Tomé e Príncipe?
Relatório completo: Relatório de Estudo: Portugal e os PALOP
I invite you all to take a look at Energy from Portugal
It powerfully starts like this: 43% of our energy comes from renewable energy sources. No wonder we worship the sun, the sea and the wind.
It reveals testimonials from Bill Clinton, Sam Bodman, Tony Blair, the King of Sweden and the President and CEO of Nissan and Renault.
Furthermore the website presents Portugal’s energy policy, nothing less than: Leadership in renewable energies
The success stories are quite some and the results achieved are:
- 43% of gross electricity generated from renewable sources;
- Largest wind farm in operation in Europe;
- Largest PV solar plant in the World;
- First worldwide wave energy project to reach the market;
- National platform for electric cars in 2011;
- EDP the 4th company in the world in renewable energy.
The website links to some related press. Here’s one more, a photo story from The Guardian: Portugal’s renewable energy boom
In addition, Portugal and Spain agreed this month on setting up a joint Renewable Energy Research Center (CIERE). The center will be specialized in biomass energy and electric vehicles investigation. The center will be led by the Portuguese António Sá da Costa, the current vice-president of the European Renewable Energy Federation.
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The last of Portugal’s true commitments, to globalization, took place five centuries ago and produced many admirable results too, such as:
- The discovery of the direct maritime route from Europe to India, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, under Vasco da Gama;
- The discovery of Brazil, by Pedro Álvares Cabral;
- The first expedition around the world, under Fernão de Magalhães;
- The discovery of New Guinea, Timor Island and maybe Australia too;
- The first trading ship to reach China;
among many others…
No wonder we worship the sun, the sea and the wind. Now, as 500 years ago, they are taking us further ∞
Mark Kurlansky’s prized book on Codfish (Gadus morhua or ‘Bacalhau’ in Portuguese) is full of curious and quite strange facts. The protagonist, an open-mouthed fish that swallows whatever it finds, is honoured to the skies and as the title makes clear codfish changed the world. The book has a great deal of convincing arguments and runs brilliantly throughout 1000 years of fishing history – and its economical and political connectedness – making also great accounts of the main countries involved (remarkably Iceland and the Basque Country but too, in a lesser extent, Portugal).
The book draws valuable messages from the overfishing practices, logically extended to other domains of natural resource exploitation. As Mark puts it, no matter what we do… “Nature, the ultimate pragmatist, doggedly searches for something that works. But as the cockroach demonstrates, what works best in nature does not always appeal to us”.
The President of Portugal gave his New Year’s message to the Portuguese people recognizing the troubled times and the difficulties Portugal has to face. He reminded us of the importance of foreign countries, e.g the importance of international trade, immigrants’ remittances, tourism, EU support policies, foreign investment and foreign loans. He stressed the significance of being self-demanding and rigorous, as well as the importance of projecting a positive image abroad. In connection with the previous post I repeat AICEP is the Portuguese key institution in many of these aspects, namely foreign trade, trourism and foreign investment; but take a look at their website…
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A Mensagem de Ano Novo do Presidente da República foi boa e foram referidos alguns pontos importantes para combater a situação Portuguesa actual. Da mensagem retiro alguns aspectos que são aqui relevantes, e que gostaria de comentar.
“Os portugueses devem também estar conscientes de que dependemos muito das relações económicas com o exterior. Não são apenas as exportações e as importações de bens. São as remessas dos nossos emigrantes, o turismo, os apoios da União Europeia, o investimento estrangeiro, os empréstimos externos que Portugal tem de contrair anualmente. Para tudo isto, é importante a credibilidade que merece a nossa política interna, as perspectivas futuras do País, a confiança que o exterior tem em nós. Devemos, por isso, ser exigentes e rigorosos connosco próprios, cuidar da imagem do País que projectamos no mundo. Caso contrário, tudo será mais difícil.”
No seguimento do post anterior, faz de facto sentido o que o Presidente da República diz. Na maior parte dos pontos referidos cabe ao AICEP a sua dinamização, nomeadamente, no que se refere às exportações, ao turismo e ao investimento estrangeiro. Cavaco Silva refere a importância da credibilidade e a necessidade de transmitir confiança ao exterior. Para isso temos de ser exigentes e rigorosos e cuidar da imagem do País que projectamos no mundo. Voltemos ao site do AICEP…
It is a strange question to ask. Regardless of what ‘development’ really means, most people would say Portugal is undoubtedly a developed country. After all, the small western European republic is part of the EU since 1986. However it is not what it looks like after visiting the website of the country’s Business Development Agency (AICEP), a key institutions for captation of (relevant?) foreign investment within the country’s Ministry of Economy and Innovation. On their website one doesn’t take long to notice that the agency is erroneously promoting the Portuguese workforce as the cheapest of EU. Wasn’t that a policy of developing countries? A strategy that helped many countries, most notably the East Asian tigers, hook up with the developed world, learn from it and upgrade? The current reality tells us a different story. The days when cheap labour was a competitive advantage are gone, even for developing countries.
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A website is extremely important, there’s no need to explain that. So why does AICEP’s website seem abandoned? If a student, an investor, a public servant, let’s say anyone who wants to know about the institution visits the website will find, among many others, the following situations:
a) The website claims “Portugal has the lowest labor costs in the EU…” and ‘proves’ it by showing a graph from 2005 including countries such as Poland, Slovakia or Latvia, among others, with lower labour costs. Weren’t they part of the EU in 2005? Yes, they were.
b) One of the four main sections of the same website is the ‘newsroom’. This section has three “news”, and the first is related to the start of the agency under the new administration on the 1st of July, 2007! Furthermore, the sorting system of these ‘news’ is quite peculiar since the oldest of the three comes in the middle!
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Evans (2005) in his article entitled “The Challenges of the Institutional Turn” brings up some ideas on institutions:
“The possibility of institutions that are disadvantageous to long-run development emerging for idiosyncratic reasons that have little to do with any kind of overall “efficiency” or “social return” and then getting “locked-in” is all too plausible.”
“Once institutions take hold, they are likely to endure even if they have a long-run negative effect on development, crowding out the possibility for the emergence of more efficacious institutions.”
“If existing institutions provide differential returns to some portion of society, which consequently has a special vested interest in their maintenance, then the problem gets worse. If that segment is also differentially powerful, which is highly likely if not axiomatic, the problem is even more intractable.”
Let us hope it’s not the case of AICEP.
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