Luís Sáragga Leal’s statements on Chinese investment in Portugal featured in the national press

PLMJ founding partner Luís Sáragga Leal took part in a conference last Tuesday at the Museu do Oriente that was held to present the Portugal Economy Probe in Mandarin. Speaking at the conference, Luís Sáragga Leal underlined the potential of Portuguese companies as intermediaries between Chinese companies and the Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa, and Brazil and Latin America. He explained that there are “more cultural differences between the different regions of China than between Portugal and the Iberian-American countries or Angola and Mozambique”.

In the opinion of the PLMJ founding partner, when Chinese investors decide to invest, they already have the financing in place, which makes it easier to implement the decision. He also pointed out that “the pressure the investor puts on companies in terms of short-term profitability does not exist on the Chinese side because their projects have a long-term strategic component”.

According to Sáragga Leal, Chinese investor sees Portugal as “a gateway to enter the European market and the markets of Portuguese-speaking countries and Latin America”. He also recognises that the Chinese do not invest in new projects. Instead, “they buy mature companies and maintain their management teams”. In this way, there focus in on what a country is good at.