Speach by the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Administrative Modernisation at Hannover Messe 2022

«Portugal and the world were faced with a situation that put their ability to function as a society to the test.

An unexpected situation. New because of the proportions it assumed in a globalized world, and which strongly conditioned the flows of people and goods between countries.

The digital dimension has therefore acquired a crucial importance, never seen before.

As the Portuguese government official responsible for Digital area, I am pleased to say that Portugal had already embraced the commitment to digital on the previous governmental cycle, and now with the new Government in place we

intend to reinforce it even more.

This reinforcement will have a triple focus: 1) on people's empowerment and digital inclusion; 2) in the digital transformation of our business fabric; 3) and in the digitization of the State.

Behind this triple focus, there must be a base of enabling elements, or catalysts, such as connectivity and infrastructure, data reuse, the adoption of disruptive technologies, always with special attention dedicated to cybersecurity.

Portugal´s ambition is to be considered a true digital nation,

… and besides some geographical aspects that work in our favour like being the closest country closer to North America, being the entry to markets that speak Portuguese as their native language (+ 261 Million people), considered as on of the safest countries in the world with great quality of life, we also have very strong assets that we are proud of, like:

- Being 4th world wide on women participation on the workforce;

- Being 7th on linguistic competencies;

- Have the 2nd highest rate in Europe of graduates in engineering courses;

- Also, on infrastructures and telecommunications being 3rd on fixed broadband access or having 76% of investors considering that this factor as one of the most important factors of attractiveness.

- As for our Innovation and Research ecosystem, we´ve been showing robust development, with 18 industrial clusters, 26 collaborative laboratories, 30 technology interface centres and more than 150 incubators/accelerators.»

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