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It is with great satisfaction that I meet with Portuguese top executives who have developed their activities in Singapore.

Your level of qualifications and the excellence of your work are proof that there is a new Portugal, which should be made known to the world.

For some time now, especially ever since the difficulties our country is going through became more evident, and which drove us to the need of external support, news have circulated, mainly in certain foreign media, that provide a distorted and misinformed image of the national reality.

The presence of Portuguese top executives in such a competitive and demanding country as Singapore is proof that Portugal is quite different from the image that, quite often, foreigners have of our country.

I have insisted on this point, in several public speeches. The success of the financial assistance programme for Portugal depends, without a doubt, on fulfilling the objectives of budgetary consolidation and financial discipline to which we are committed. But it also requires economic growth that will create value and employment. Only thus will it be possible to ensure the social justice and the cohesion of Portuguese society.

Growth demands, we know it well, structural reforms to sustain it, so that, lasting improvement and wellbeing follow the sacrifices that are now demanded of the Portuguese people.

But the truth is that, on defining a growth strategy, a positive external perception of our country is of paramount importance. Through it, it will be easier to attract investment, to obtain financing with affordable interest rates, to increase the export of goods, to ensure de development of key-sectors such as tourism.

Policy action plays, naturally, a vital role in the projection of a positive external image. We are, however, before a collective task, a national purpose that must be undertaken by all Portuguese people.

Your presence in Singapore is evidence that nowadays, in areas such as applied research or entrepreneurial activity, there are no political or geographical boundaries. The great boundary is that of knowledge. That is the limit that separates those who have the capacity to compete efficiently in the globalised world from those who have not yet reached this level of development. And Portugal is clearly within the group of those countries in the frontline of the knowledge society.

I thus appeal to all present here today that you internalise a mission that you will have to fulfil as Portuguese citizens. Given the excellence that characterises you, you are invested with the special duty of being the diplomats of the real Portugal, thus helping your country overcome in the best possible way our present hardships.

As successful professionals – and for that I congratulate you – you know, as few do, what is the key to success in a globalised and competitive world. You know, without a doubt, that knowledge is a vital asset, but also that, without spreading that knowledge, without the creation of networks, it will be extremely difficult to obtain any results. And making Portugal known is, from that perspective, one of your responsibilities.

I am confident that your talent will enable Singapore to look at Portugal with admiration. Not just because it produced a vanguard of highly qualified and dynamic professionals, but because those talents illustrate well the real capacities of a country undergoing transformation, which has potential and human capital that deserve to be known.

I thank you for the contribution you are already making, with your example, in this national effort of projecting the real Portugal. I only ask you that, in some way, you deepen and systematise that contribution, with the awareness that, if you do it, you will be helping in the construction of a better country for all and, especially, for the Portuguese of future generations.

Thank you very much.