Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

Honourable Chairman of COTEC-Portugal
Honourable Entrepreneurs
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I congratulate COTEC for their choice of the theme for this National Meeting – education and qualification. This is a central issue, not only for a wider debate on innovation, but also on the understanding of the challenges which our country faces in the transition to a knowledge based economy.

We know that in the global world we live in, innovation and creativity assume a higher economic value. Entrepreneurs have already understood the increasingly decisive importance for their success that exists in the capacity to convert ideas into innovative products and services. Politicians are also conscious that knowledge intensive areas are those with greater potential growth and that can better sustain the economic and social progress of the Country.

However, in order that investment in innovation creates roots and bears fruit, it is necessary to guide the Portuguese towards the enormous advantages of education and qualification for the increase in productivity. We must all realize that the qualification of human resources will provide our business enterprises with the conditions to compete with greater success.

Never as nowadays has so much been spoken and written on the subjects of innovation and entrepreneurship. We have to recognize, however, that Portugal continues having a low rate of entrepreneurial activity. Changing this situation is a necessary and arduous task. There are, notwithstanding, encouraging signs.

There is a new generation of young people that give us reason to believe in the future. A generation which was born and bred to the natural use of new technologies. A generation which has acquired and accumulated academic qualifications as never before happened in Portugal. A generation which, due to programmes such as Erasmus, has given a new meaning to the word «mobility» and a new sense to the idea of European integration.

We must however be aware that mobility implies the risk of many of our younger people, perhaps even the better qualified, of leaving the country for places providing better conditions for personal and professional satisfaction.
 
I had the opportunity, recently, to call upon the young people not to conform. I insist on this appeal to the new generations: when thinking of your professional career, do not give up Portugal.

But, for young entrepreneurs not to give up Portugal, it is also necessary that Portugal does not forget the new generations, their voice, and their ambitions.

It is absolutely necessary that an effort be made for our Country to have an environment that encourages initiative and is propitious for investments to be carried out in innovative areas.

In this perspective I would immediately underline the need we have to overtake the stigma usually associated, amongst us, to the failure of an entrepreneurial initiative. The experience in failing is inherent to risk and may even represent an increased capacity for future success. Failure is common to those who conform, to those who have no ambitions.

I would equally single out the need to bolster the offer of conditions and incentives so that young people with entrepreneurial vocation may exploit new business ideas, technologies and models.

There is enormous potential accumulated in the universities and in enterprise incubating centres, a potential that must be placed at the disposal of entrepreneurial candidates.

I had the opportunity, during the campaigns of the Route to Science, to become acquainted with enterprises whose promoters had obtained in the universities, the resources required for the development of their ideas and projects. These are good examples to be followed.

Entrepreneurs and Managers,

I note with satisfaction that one of the topics of today’s meeting is centred on the importance of training in order to achieve. Portugal has recovered time in this issue, and already has a considerable supply of entrepreneurial courses at university level. The success of this type of training lies, not so much in theoretical concepts, but in focusing young people on practical activities, nearer to the reality of the entrepreneurial world.

I have thus decided to support the activity of the Learning to Undertake Association, by sponsoring its programme “The Enterprise”, which will be started this current year with students in secondary education. This programme aims to encourage young people, not just to acquire knowledge in entrepreneurial activities, but also to develop specific projects. I expect that the foreseeable success of this initiative will become a source for encouraging the widening of this type of training to all of Portugal’s young people.

One of the greater constraints felt by young entrepreneurs is the difficulty in finding investors available to assume the risk of their projects. The insufficient dimension of the Portuguese market in risk finance has been an important obstacle to the setting up of new enterprises and a factor of dismay for young entrepreneurs.

I thus salute the start up of the new frame-programme of Innovative Finance for SME’s – INOFIN. It is hoped that these new public support instruments bring new dynamics into the setting up of enterprises and allows the faster development of the Portuguese market in risk finance.

It is also important to provide incentives for Portuguese enterprises to use the instruments of protection of industrial property. It is imperative that investments in new technologies and research should be more vigorously promoted easing the access to juridical protection conferred through industrial protection and the registration of ideas, trademarks and patents.

Entrepreneurs and Managers,

I know I am addressing a particularly qualified audience in matters of innovation. Represented here are many examples of enterprises that developed business models with global success. Some searched the global markets when already in an advanced state of growth, whilst others assumed internationalization from the very beginning. In both situations the experience acquired is great added value for Portugal.

Contacts with the younger enterprises, many of them unknown to the general public, show that their attitude is already to “be born global” or, if we prefer, to «think global, act global». This approach can be explained by generational reasons, but may also be an attempt to recreate known cases of success.

At times, however, there is a scarcity in these enterprises of knowledge and expertise to carry out accelerated internationalization procedures. To broach this gap, I invite you, Entrepreneurs, to open the doors of your organizations to young Portuguese entrepreneurs and researchers and to share with them your expertise in internationalization. I am certain this will be an enriching contact for both sides.

A year ago, I suggested the constitution, within the scope of COTEC-Portugal, of a Globalization Committee, which I sponsored. The success of the first meeting, which is decisively owed to the endeavours of the COTEC Management, encouraged the continuity of this initiative, with a second meeting scheduled for next September.

I repeat the objectives of the Globalization Committee: contribute towards the understanding and dissemination of the Globalization phenomenon; create in Portuguese society the sense of urgency for the changes required to attain success in the global world; and create and strengthen the links between the leaders of International and Portuguese enterprises.

Entrepreneurs and Managers,

In order to incite the new entrepreneurial generations we also require a new attitude from the current generation and from its representative associations. An attitude which will alter practices and habits in entrepreneurial life and which will promote a culture for the sharing of competences and expertise. For this reason I single out the work carried out by COTEC-Portugal in the development of their network of innovative SME’s, which is being joined today by 24 new members, as well as the merit of the work carried out in the classification of R&D activities.

The leaders of entrepreneurial innovation in Portugal are awarded here, today, with the SME Innovation prizes. I wish to address my congratulations to the ex-aequo award winners, Alert and Frulact, as well as to Vortal, winner of an honourable mention, for the recognized excellence of their entrepreneurial models and innovation, and also a word of appreciation to all who took part in the competition.

I was very pleased to take part, together with you all, in this closure of the 2007 edition of the COTEC National Innovation Meeting. I leave with the conviction that we have the means to carry out the changes in the Country’s entrepreneurial fabric, to win in the global world, as well as to motivate and encourage the new generations to attain their objectives of personal and professional satisfaction.