CHINESE POLICY
Chinese investment in core economic sectors has included finance, banking, and insurance.
Why Portugal?
Cynics in the EU answer this by pointing to diversified Chinese investment worldwide. Their claim is that China, long on the ascendancy, yet checked by the US, pursues overseas acquisitions to expand its political, as well as commercial, scope of influence. Indeed, strategic investments in energy, real estate, and finance have been massive, not least in Portugal.
A more prosaic answer points to commercial expediency in what was effectively the fire-sale of post-crisis Portugal. Lisbon, economically gutted by the 2008 crisis, received an USD89 billion EU-IMF bailout conditional upon austerity and a comprehensive privatization of state assets to reanimate growth. Meanwhile, the wealthy Chinese population in Portugal was boosted by the popular money-spinning solution of the golden visa, whereby investment of USD600,000 provided foreign nationals a welcome foothold in the European market. Whichever way you slice it, in the 2010-2016 period Chinese investment (roughly USD8 billion to date, mostly in energy, banking, and insurance sectors) had come to account for 3.6% of Portugal's GDP, with China Portugal's 11th-largest trade partner in the 10 years since the crisis, at which time ranked 28th.
Premium Spender
Listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, China's Fosun International has a market capitalization north of EUR6 billion. In 2016, this war chest enabled the purchase of a 16.75% stake in Portugal's biggest listed bank, BCP, with roughly a 30% market share. Fosun, chaired by majority major shareholder Guo Guangchang, China's own Warren Buffet, had spent over EUR1 billion two years earlier on its preeminent insurance company, Fidelidade. In fact, it had purchased the three insurance firms Fidelidade-Companhia de Seguros, Multicare-Seguros de Saude, and Cares-Companhia de Seguros, formerly wholly owned by Portuguese state-owned bank Caixa Geral de Depositos (CGD). The latter deal streamlined the Portuguese group by narrowing the focus to core banking activity, in step once again with Portugal's commitment to the Financial and Economic Assistance Programme signed with the European Commission, the ECB, and the IMF. The deal was southern Europe's largest insurance acquisition in three years, but the largest ever for Portugal, leaving the insurer in comparable financial health to that of its European peers. In a two-way street, while Fosun leverages the well-established reputation and commercial acumen of CGD, privatization of the latter has lent its insurance units fresh vitality and long-term competitiveness. Fosun had identified insurance as one of its core future interests ahead of the huge acquisitions. The claim has been borne out in the fact that while back in 2012, the sector accounted for a mere 4.8% of its total assets, its value skyrocketed 1,182% post acquisition.
All Part of the Deal
With the financial sector explicitly connected to all others, diversified Chinese buyouts have effectively been downstream acquisitions. It is no fortunate coincidence that in 2014 Fosun also purchased Luz Saude, Portugal's largest healthcare provider by hospital number, for EUR460 million.
The Wider View
Portugal is not a passive observer of Chinese influence and has recently pledged cooperation on the unfolding new silk road project, the Belt and Road Initiative. A related MoU was penned in December 2018 by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa. Indeed, 17 bilateral cooperation MoUs of the type Beijing has in place across Asia, Africa, and Europe were signed in a bid to bridge the space between. Portugal also seeks to benefit from China's call for deeper cooperation across culture, education, tourism, science, and technology.
The EU's Knitted Brow
In a bid to check “predatory” Chinese inroads to key European industries, the EU in 2017 recommended a non-binding screening mechanism for member-state debate on Chinese expansion. Approved by the European Parliament, the law will scrutinize would-be deals and where the bloc feels it necessary, attempt to persuade individual member states to rethink. Predatory in business however, as China would doubtless argue, is just another a term for sour grapes.
Be it silk road or spider's web, then, Chinese investment has proven to be a valuable solution to Portugal's post-crisis commitments, testament also to China's new status in the global order.
CHINESE POLICY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Focus: Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries
Making an Impact
Established in 1996, the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries (CPLP) is a mechanism geared at linking and sharing the experience of Lusophone countries. Besides Portugal, this includes Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
read articleFocus
Don’t Mind the Disruption
Having won the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, Lisbon hosted the 2018 event. The relevance? Well, the contest began back in 1956 as a showcase not only of song, but of then-nascent live television broadcast technology. Today, Portugal is on the cutting edge of new technological developments.
read articleInterview
João Pedro Soeiro de Matos Fernandes , Minister , Environment and Energy Transition
The Ministry for the Environment and Energy Transition is focusing on decarbonizing the economy, valuing the territory and its habitats, and striving for a more circular use of the country's resources.
read articleInterview
António Braz Costa , General Manager, Portuguese Technological Centre for the Textile & Clothing Industries (CITEVE)
CITEVE has transformed the industry by promoting value addition, adopting the latest technologies, and ensuring the highest standards of environmental sustainability.
read articleFocus: New airport
Right Time to Seize Missed Opportunities
Portugal has seen its air traffic figures increase by as much as 80% in the last five years. As a result, its transportation infrastructure, and Lisbon's airport in particular, cannot cope with the rising numbers. A new airport project that will turn a military base into a commercial airport is now under discussion to bring much-needed relief to air traffic.
read articleInterview
Germano de Sousa , President, Grupo Germano de Sousa
Grupo Germano de Sousa's success can best be summed up by its understanding that science and medicine only really progress when technological development is combined with a deeper respect for human values and professional ethics.
read articleInterview
Isabel Capeloa Gil , Rector, Universidade Católica
Having pioneered the introduction of multiple subject areas to Portugal's tertiary education scene, Universidade Católica is aspiring to establish the country's first private medical school and introduce cutting-edge digital transformation.
read articleInterview
Carlos Guillén Gestoso , President, Escola Universitária de Ciências Empresariais, Saúde, Tecnologias e Engenharia & President, Atlantica University
Atlantica University differentiates through its company-university model and an MBA program in partnership with the University of California, Berkley, among other initiatives, to produce practical theoreticians.
read articleFocus: Public teaching staff
An Age-old Problem
Over a decade of austerity measures combined with an ageing population have seen the average age of the Portuguese public teaching staff progressively climb to one of the highest in the OECD. With frozen salaries, an extended retirement age, and precarious working conditions, today the sector faces one of its biggest challenge yet.
read articleInterview
Pedro Queiroz , General Manager, Federation of the Portuguese Agri-Food Industry (FIPA)
Portugal's economic recovery has seen its F&B sector emerge with annual turnovers of EUR16 billion, thanks to FIPA's undeterred focus on stable policies, excellent nutrition standards, and sustainability.
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