"It is a familiar sight. World leaders visiting fast-developing economies, such as China, Russia or India, are often accompanied by a gaggle of business executives who boast about the mega-deals they have just concluded in their host country."*
À atenção dos sucessivos ministros da Economia, habituados a negociar "one to one" com grandes empresas:
"governments would do better to concentrate their trade promotion efforts on helping smaller exporting companies to become more competitive and expand rather than assisting the corporate “superstars” that can fend for themselves. “Trade missions do not generate trade,” it concludes."
Se os governos querem que as exportações dos seus países aumentem:
"the priority for most governments should be to broaden their countries’ exporting base. The number of exporters is the main determinant of aggregate exports"
...
"The report recommends that governments help companies expand by lowering barriers to entry and cutting administrative costs. "
jj
Reduzir custos administrativos e não subsidiar (em sintonia com o gráfico que Vasconcellos e Sá apresenta na última página da Vida Económica desta semana, sobre o diferente trajecto das indústrias farmacêuticas em Portugal e na Irlanda, nos últimos 20 anos; e em sintonia com as palavras de João Luís de Sousa na "Nota de Fecho", na mesma página da Vida Económica: "Portugal pode ser o país certo para reformados, herdeiros ou comendadores, mas é seguramente o país errado para aqueles que acreditam no valor efectivo dos produtos que vendem ou dos serviços que prestam à comunidade, em regime de liberdade de escolha e sem favores.A vassalagem imposta pelo Estado tem custos exorbitantes e incomportáveis."
"European companies are not as good as their US counterparts at reallocating labour and capital resources from failing to expanding companies. European governments need to inject greater competition into their domestic industries to increase efficiency and export effectiveness.
n
“In the US, firms are created and, if they are good, they survive and grow. If not, they shut down and exit. In Europe you have a forest of small companies that simply survive and do not exit, and absorb resources that could be better deployed elsewhere,”
Já que está na moda falar da Finlândia, convém contar a história toda "Creative Destruction in Finnish Manufacturing", em especial:
"The abrupt and deep economic plunge in the early 1990s is comparable to only a few occasions
in the peacetime economic history of the developed countries. The unemployment rate surged from 3.2 to 16.7 percent in 1990-94." 16.7%!!!
n
E esta:
"It is widely believed that restructuring has boosted productivity by displacing low-skilled workers and creating jobs for the high skilled."
"In essence, creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants." Por favor voltar a trás e reler esta última afirmação.
"As creative destruction is shown to be an important element of economic growth, there is definitely a case for public policy to support this process, or at least avoid disturbing it without good reason. Competition in product markets is important. Subsidies, on the other hand, may insulate low productivity plants and firms from healthy market selection, and curb incentives for improving their productivity performance. Business failures, plant shutdowns and layoffs are the unavoidable byproducts of economic development."
Por isso, quando leio, na entrevista de Reis Campos, presidente da AICCOPN, a Sandra Ribeiro (Vida Económica) que "O TGV e o novo aeroporto representam um valor de 11 mil milhões de euros, ou seja, cerca de 25% do total do QREN", temo que estejamos a subsidiar 10.7% do emprego e a não deixar que a destruição criativa tenha lugar, e que a floresta de empresas que apenas sobrevivem e não fecham, continue a absorver os recursos que podiam ser melhor aplicados noutro lugar.
* Trechos iniciais extraídos do artigo "Small companies best at boosting exports", assinado por John Thorhill no Financial Times de ontem, só que depois o texto levou-me por outros caminhos. Pela minha parte, vou fazer o download deste relatório "The Happy Few: The internationalisation of European firms - New facts based on firm-level evidence" de Thierry Mayer e Gianmarco Ottaviano, publicado pelo Bruegl think-tank aqui.