Elastron Awarded by AICEP as the best exporting PME.
The difficulties brought about by the pandemic created obstacles to the growth of companies and the country, but there are good examples of resilience in the economy.
Perseverance, agility, and innovation are factors that Luís Castro Henriques, president of the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP), attributes to Portuguese companies that, he says, managed to adapt to the demands of the health crisis and continue to grow. At the last session of the agency's Annual Conference, last Friday, examples of overcoming challenges and achieving success in a period that many describe as unprecedented in this century were highlighted.
In the now-customary AICEP Export & Investment Awards, the institution recognized organizations funded by Portugal 2020 with positive performance. The winners of this edition were Elastron, which won the award for Best Exporting SME.
Founded in 1978, Elastron Portugal is a company focused on the trade of synthetic fabrics, microfiber, natural and artificial leather, with a presence in countries such as Italy, Spain, Romania, Germany, and Bulgaria, offering solutions specifically designed for the upholstery and footwear industries. With a gross added value of €4.9 million, José Carlos Oliveira, the company's CEO, believes that "the market is global" and therefore there is a need for national companies to invest in internationalization. For him, it is important to continue supporting the national business sector so that "we can all recover strongly, because we all depend on each other."
Castro Henriques says that these companies are just two examples of national competitiveness and emphasizes that "there are reasons to be confident in the future," not only because of the agility and resilience of the organizations, but also because of the support from the Portuguese State and the European Union. "When the paradigm shift occurs, I believe the economy will begin to recover," concludes the president of AICEP.