Although the last quarter of 2022 was challenging for Portugal, the economy bounced back during the first quarter of 2023, aided by a strong increase in tourism and a slight recovery in supply chains globally.

The short-term outlook of Swedish companies in Portugal, more explicitly the outlook in the coming 12 months, indicates optimism, where 57 per cent of the respondents expects an increase in turnover during this period.

An interesting observation is that large-sized companies are the most optimistic ones regarding the economic outlook for the coming 12 months, with 75 per cent of the companies expecting an increase in turnover.

Swedish companies in Portugal are active in a diverse range of business areas, although for most of the responding companies, 68 per cent, the main operations in the Portuguese market are marketing and sales. The image of the “Swedish brand” abroad is generally positive, with some reoccurring associations being an equal, fair, and sustainable country with high quality of life.

Please download the report to fully overview the results with a detailed analysis. 

ABOUT THE SURVEY

Team Sweden Portugal – the Embassy of Sweden in Portugal, Business Sweden, and the Swedish-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce – has once again joined forces and carried out a business climate survey among Swedish companies present in Portugal.

The purpose of this exercise is to assess the performance of Swedish companies in Portugal as well as to provide an overview of some of the opportunities and challenges they face in the Portuguese market. These insights can help us further develop bilateral trade relations as well as the opportunity to provide better support to Swedish companies in Portugal.

Forty companies responded to the survey, which was conducted in February-April of 2023, thus yielding a response rate of around 42 per cent. We would like to extend our most sincere gratitude to the participating companies for the knowledge and insights that they have shared with us – for the benefit of us all.