COMPETITIVENESS OF PORTUGUESE EXPORTS IN THE LAST DECADE

The economic and financial crisis that has been affecting the world economy since 2008 affected the European countries in different ways. Portugal, a small peripheral country with a widely open economy suffered the consequences derived from the crisis that were amplified by a strong imbalance of the public accounts, large public and private debts, and insufficient levels of competitiveness of its industries and services. In order to aim at re-establishing the capability to grow, a restrictive budget procedure and changes in labour laws were put in place. Therefore, the economy may only significantly grow through an important increase in exports, sine internal consumption, both public and private, will continue to decrease. This paper aims at evaluating the competitiveness of the major Portuguese exports at world level during the decade 2005-2014, analyzing the main groups of products. The methodology use was based on the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA). Results show that Portugal overtook the situation of a non-competitive to a competitive country in exports. However, the effect of the crisis can be seen from the fact that the value of exports decreased more than the rest of the world, as a consequence of the imbalance of public finances and of the restrictive political and fiscal measures taken to overcome the situation. From these results one may conclude that there is a need to increase the level of performance of the Portuguese economy, namely through measures aimed at growth in competitiveness, in internationalization, and thus including education, training and research.