Government outlines tariff mitigation policies

Portugal’s government held emergency meetings with business and industry associations on Tuesday to hammer out a tariff impact mitigation plan and beef up credit lines for competitiveness and innovation so that companies can find alternative markets to the US.

According to the business daily Negócios, the President of the Industrial Confederation of Portugal (CIP), Armindo Monteiro (Pictured), has revealed that the “amount on the table is quite considerable”.

“There are sectors that are very dependent on the US but are well seen in other countries”, he said, giving Canada as an example – a country facing the same difficulties.

Amaro Reis, President of Portugal’s plastics association, (APIP) informed that the government was preparing a sum including support initiatives and funds to encourage companies to explore new markets and cover their insurance risks on loans.

Gualter Morgado, CEO of Portugal’s furniture and furnishing manufacturers association, APIMA, stressed that flexibility and agility were essential because “finding new markets to replace others required a great capacity to act and overcome resistance in simple things”.

These could create lack of predictability and order in the system from red tape to contextual costs that exceeded any benefits and hampered internationalisation. “Making things easier would help a lot”, he said.

The swiftness in the government’s response and the measures proposed by the business and industrial associations, as well as negotiations with the European Commission and the creation of a task force was welcomed by APIP (Plastics association) so companies could react rapidly.

Apart from a rapid response on support measures for companies that are already feeling the pinch in consumption and orders, the associations have come up with other suggestions such as cutting VAT on all food products from 23% to 13% for processed foods to increase internal demand if overseas demand drops.

Another measure is the adoption of a short-term simplified layoff scheme for those companies that suffer a fall in orders.