Business Roundtable Portugal launches a comparison platform to stimulate competitiveness

Business Roundtable Portugal (BRP) on Tuesday launched a comparative statistical tool to help diagnose the loss of competitiveness of the Portuguese economy and reverse this trend, at a time when the country is debating proposals in the run-up to Portugal's legislative elections. March 10.

The “Comparar para Crescer” platform was launched in partnership with KPMG and InformaDB, using public data from INE, Eurostat and Pordata to compare across 30 key indicators with a group of countries similar to Portugal. Starting the statistical series in 2000, the comparison group was created based on economies whose GDP per capita at the beginning of the century was similar to the national counterpart.

After 23 years, the BRP has set as one of its goals to return Portugal to the group of 15 countries with the highest per capita GDP in the European bloc, after it had been surpassed by several cohesion countries.

“To make appropriate decisions, it is necessary to have information. This tool tries to respond to this need by using partners that are very credible and based on verifiable public data, allowing decisions to be made based on specific information,” Vasco de Mello, president of the association, explained to JE. .

During the programme, the group's president, José de Mello, said the country needed to “have the capacity to increase our ambition”, urging that this “become a national goal”.

Previously, Nuno Amado, President of Millennium BCP and BRP Board Member, said that “if there is no policy evolution towards pragmatism, investing in civil society, businesses, and accelerating the speed of implementation, we will not grow faster.” As quickly as necessary.”

More than “money spent,” it is important to understand the “financial effort” that agents have to put in so that they can rely on the goods and services necessary for their prosperity, continued Nuno Amado, justifying the importance of “comparison for growth.” '.

The platform brings together 30 indicators divided into four areas – Global Performance, Individuals, Corporates and Country – BRP's main business axes, drawing a comparison with the rest of the European economies, focusing on eight countries: Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia and Hungary. Economies such as Malta and Cyprus were excluded because of their size, while Croatia entered the EU too soon to make a relevant comparison, explained Pedro Gingera do Nascimento, Secretary General of the BRP.

Since it is still a “zero version”, it is expected to contain more sector analyzes and analysis “snapshots”, association officials noted.