Foreign Presence and Export Performance: The Role of Portuguese Commercial Diplomacy

Abstract

This article studies whether export supporting activities developed by Portuguese diplomatic representations in the last decade have had any impact on Portugal's international trade. It used data for 187 destination countries, for the period of 2008 to 2017, controlling for other determinants of trade through a gravity model. Complementing the econometric analysis of the macro data, a survey was applied to 238 Portuguese exporting firms. The results imply a less relevant role for embassies and consulates in export promotion and facilitation. These results highlight the necessity to change the way that national diplomatic representations interact with exporting firms, in particular SMEs.

Towards Internationalization: Exploring Economic Diplomacy in the Middle East (GCC)

“…Participants look to the ME as a potential market for the future, a desirable strategic location for business with a growing number of investment opportunities. Saudi Arabia is, according to the focus group participants, undoubtedly the most promising market for the future (AICEP 2023;Fernandes and Forte 2022;Lederman et al 2010;Pacheco and Matos 2022;Rede Diplomática 2023).…”

Do ISO Certifications Enhance Internationalization? The Case of Portuguese Industrial SMEs

“…Given the severe information problems involved in exporting activities, adding new destination countries or new goods and services may be challenging, in particular for SMEs with limited international experience and a scarcity of human resources. As argued by several authors [36][37][38], incomplete information creates frictions in the process of matching between buyers and sellers across national borders; therefore, this is an obstacle to the development of export activities. These problems are even more significant for SMEs located in a peripheral country, such as Portugal, and that produce differentiated products.…”

Untitled

“…For example, to overcome the global economic crisis, Portugal tried to increase the degree of internationalization of the economy. A significant obstacle to the expansion of exports with new goods or access to new markets (the extensive margin) or increasing exports to current trading partners (the intensive margin) is the incompleteness of information (Pacheco & Matos, 2022). This should also be taken into account for agri-food products of Ukraine, which already have a permanent consumers, but there are still significant untapped opportunities for new products and new markets.…”