Only 6.3% of Portuguese companies export
In 2017 over half of the economic growth was caused by net exports. Even though only 6.3% of the Portuguese companies export, these represent over a third of the total business volume in the country.
Only 6.3% of Portuguese companies export, but their weight on the total business volume of the country is quite significant, as the data from INE, released this Wednesday, showed.
In 2017 there were 394,967 companies registered in the country, and out of those 24,784 had an exporting profile, which means that only 6.3% of the total of companies were mostly focused on exporting, in comparison to 6.2% last year.
The data is part of a yearly publication done by the Portuguese Office for National Statistics (INE) looking at the performance of the country’s companies in the year 2017. Financial corporations such as banks were left out of the study, which focused on non-financial corporations.
INE considers that a company has an exporting profile if it complies with two criteria:
- At least 50% of the company’s business volume is a result of exports of services and goods
- At least 10% of the company’s business volume is a result of exports of services and goods, with a value above €150 thousand.
Despite the number of companies with exporting profile being quite low, these companies have a more significant performance if we look at some important factors, such as the country’s total business volume, for which 34.9% of the exporting companies are responsible. Exporting companies are also responsible for 33% of the total Gross value added and employ 23 % of the labour force in the country.
These values are even more significant in 2017 given that the economy accelerated by 2.8% that year. 54% of that growth was achieved because of the net exports’ value. According to the Bank of Portugal on their December economic bulletin, in 2017 exports represented 43% of GDP.
