Companies expect 4.9% growth in exports by 2021
After the sharp drop in 2020, Portuguese companies are confident that exports will recover this year.
Companies exporting goods are confident that 2021 will be a year of recovery for overseas sales. Exports are expected to grow by 4.9% this year, but this recovery in international trade will not be enough to erase the impact of the pandemic crisis. Far from it: the value of goods exports will remain 12.8% below the 2019 total.
“Although these figures represent an improvement compared to the perspectives indicated by enterprises for 2020 according to the preceding forecast (-13.0% ), they still not allow a recovery to values close to those recorded before the pandemic,” the Statistics Portugal (INE) revealed on Monday in the Perspectives on Exports of Goods survey, corresponding to the first forecast for the nominal variation of exports of goods expected by the companies in 2021.
Thus, according to INE: “the exports of goods in 2021 will correspond to a level 12.8% lower than the total exports of goods recorded in 2019.” In other words, it will take more years of a strong recovery in exports of goods to erase the impact of Covid-19 on international trade from Portugal’s perspective.
Portuguese companies expect trade within the European Union to be more dynamic in the recovery, growing by 5.2% in 2021 compared to 2020. For non-EU trade (which already includes the UK this year) growth is expected to be 4.4%.
Among the various goods that Portugal exports, “it is noteworthy the expected increase in exports of Capital goods (except transport equipment), and parts and accessories thereof (+5.5%), Industrial supplies not elsewhere specified (+5.1%) and Transport equipment and parts and accessories thereof (+4.7%), mainly for Intra-EU markets (+6.8%, +5.7% and +5.1%, respectively),” the Statistics Portugal explained.
