Portugal closest to the top of the Entrepreneurship rankings

According to The Portugal News website, over the last 10 years our country has moved from the lower end of most European entrepreneurship rankings to being now close to the top.

According to the European Central Bank, Portugal is the second-best country in Europe in terms of business innovation, with the technology and technology business sector having a marked presence in the country and in frank evolution in terms of new companies/ opportunities and corresponding financial outcome. According to the same website, seven unicorns were created in Portugal, not mythological, but real. In the world of start-ups this name is used to describe those companies valued at one billion dollars. The expression “unicorn start-up” was coined in 2013 by American equity investor Aileen Lee, in her article Welcome to the unicorn club: learning from billion-dollar start-up’s. The term also refers to something magical and rare to label these unique businesses, companies that have innovative proposals and reach high levels of success. Portugal is among the 5 best unicorn breeding countries in the world, measured by unicorns per capita or by GDP.

One of the reasons given for this rise seems to be related to the type of people that the country has been attracting. People connected to the technology sector, who can easily work in any country in the world. These people have increasingly chosen Portugal: our welcoming spirit, the ease of speaking English, the existing technological solutions, among many others and especially the fact that we are definitely on the map, for the best reasons.

We are not just talking about the people we attract, but also about those who already exist and are now arriving in the job market. It is time to say that highly qualified professionals can now stay in their country and not only need to consider abroad as a possibility in terms of employability. Conditions in the country are changing and improving, in the sense of retaining the best, our best. The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) states that Portugal has the 2nd highest rate of engineering graduates in Europe and is the 12th in the world to find new qualified employees. Also, according to the OECD, Portugal is today the cheapest country in Europe to run a business. Companies with a presence in the country, such as Siemens, Volkswagen, IKEA, Nestlé, Microsoft, Unilever and Danone, rank their Portuguese subsidiaries as the most effective globally. And all these companies have helped to develop a large base of skilled and experienced employees with the skills and experience to build their own businesses.

The Lisbon Web Summit is the world’s largest technology event and an annual gateway to leading software and idea creators, entrepreneurs and companies. Portugal also has some of the best accelerators and business incubators in the world, the Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN) in Coimbra, for example, was ranked among the top 5 worldwide in 2021. In the IPN business incubator, companies have, “in the first years of life, conditions that facilitate access to the scientific and technological system and of an environment that provides the expansion of knowledge in matters such as quality, management, marketing and contact with national and international markets. The Incubator provides support during the nascent phase of new innovative business projects and/or technology-based and advanced services” (website: Instituto Pedro Nunes (ipn.pt))

The advantages associated with entrepreneurship are clear: creation of new companies, greater investment in the economy, creation of new jobs, the promotion of competitiveness and innovation. Entrepreneurship combines creativity, innovation and the ability to take risks. Educating for entrepreneurship should therefore be encouraged, with the active participation of organizations, citizens, companies and other stakeholders. It is necessary to educate to create habits of resilience, organization and consistency, fundamental ingredients for success.