"As a country open to foreign investment, Portugal welcomes investment from China." The investment counsellor of the Portuguese Embassy in China, Mr. conpati, said at the recent online promotion meeting of Portugal's investment environment. Last year marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Portugal. With frequent high-level exchanges between the two countries and the sustained growth of bilateral trade and investment, Sino Portuguese relations have shown a good development pattern and comprehensive strategic partnership has been continuously strengthened.
As the first one belt, one road west of China, the main advantage of Portugal's investment environment is its geographical location and market access. Portugal is an important hub connecting the Silk Road and the maritime Silk Road, and has natural advantages in economic and trade cooperation with China. Portugal is not only a bridge to the huge consumer market of 500 million people in Europe, but also a bridge connecting Portuguese speaking countries in Africa and South America, so the market is broader. In addition, Portugal has a good business environment, ranking the second largest OECD country open to foreign investment, Forbes ranked 25th as the most suitable country for doing business in 2019, and the world bank ranked first in cross-border trade in 2019. In terms of talents, most Portuguese master English, French, western German and other language skills, which is very beneficial for Chinese enterprises who want to go global. Their scientific literacy and technical level are higher than the average level of Europe, among which the number of engineering graduates ranks second in Europe, with more high-quality talents and world-renowned innovation ability.
In recent years, a number of Chinese enterprises represented by the Three Gorges group and the State Grid have carried out good cooperation with a number of important Portuguese enterprises, and the pace of Chinese enterprises' layout in Portugal has been accelerating. In 2018, COFCO set up a "center of excellence" to provide shared services for COFCO international in Porto, Portugal, which not only accelerated COFCO's goal of becoming a world-class grain merchant, but also created more than 100 new jobs covering it, procurement, human resources and finance.
