Eurico Brilhante Días said Portugal "has sufficient demand to contract until the end of the year what it contracted in 2020, 2019 and 2018".

He added: "The year 2021, as a whole, can be the equivalent of the three previous years", said the government official, during the AICEP ‘Exports & Investment’ conference.

According to the Secretary of State, if Portugal conformed with all investors on the list contracted by 31 December, "we could reach €3 billion in contracts.”

"It means that, alongside this movement, foreign direct investment (FDI) in stock in the country reached, for the first time, in 2020, 75% of GDP, which is an all-time record,” he continued.

Despite the fact Portugal’s GDP fell in 2020, Días said 2021 GDP already hit 75.1% in H1 and continues to grow “which means that the FDI flow and the FDI stock are growing, allowing to continue to have more weight of foreign direct investment”.

He added that “foreign capital is decisive for the virtuous cycle between investment and exports. If Portugal grew between 2017-2019 above the European Union average, it owes much to the attraction of exports to attract foreign direct investment.”

During the conference, president of the National Commission for Monitoring the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), António Costa Silva cautioned the country has lost the “collective link of working with each other”, which can be “lethal” for the future of Portugal.

Costa Silva went on to warn of internal problems within Portugal’s economy which in the 20 years of the 21st century was stagnant “and remains stagnant”, reports Portugal News.

“In these 20 years, our GDP per capita, if we compare it with the average level in the European Union, has fluctuated 30 to 40% below the European average”, he said.