s I have said it in previous editorials, the cycle is changing, and quicker than we predicted. Throughout this 10 year expansion period, the longest of its kind on record, many have erroneously believed that this growth would be exponential and eternal. Anybody like myself, that has been in the sector for over 30 years, knows that is a dangerous illusion, one that paves the way to complacency and, consequently, to mistakes and disasters.

If there is one thing you cannot have in this industry is overconfidence, thinking you have reached tranquillity with an ephemeral prosperity. Nevertheless, it has always been the permanent startle, the constant state of vigilance and the predisposition to change, whenever necessary, that created the survival instinct that is in the Portuguese textile and clothing industry’s (TCI) DNA.

An unprecedented mix of degrading political, social and economic conjunctures, in the country and abroad; changes in some clients’ sourcing policies, who in the past were crucial for the TCI and that now search for geographies where the production costs are lower, in order to make larger margins; without forgetting the structural changes in the consumers’ behaviour, who in the West, our main market, tends to buy less clothing items. All this will be at the very base of the next adjustment the sector will have to face in the following years.

In this demanding context, it’s expected that the business community redefines itself. The dependency on some markets and clients might be fatal, if the organizations are too weak to react. It’s essential to branch out to other markets, offer differentiated products and services or to develop new business models more in tune with the consumption profile that is growing today and that tomorrow will be dominant.

I have no doubts that the Portuguese TCI will, once again, come out on top, cleansed and reinforced with new capabilities and competences, as it did so often in a recent past.

However, I cannot refrain from exhorting that there can be no hesitations in the companies’ restructures and reforms, which will have to be done swiftly if the sector wants to resist and prevail. More productivity, more commercial aggressiveness, more international presence, more diversity of markets and clients, more added value and less available productive capacity, more focus and more judicious management are essential if we want to be ahead. The challenge of offering more services will have to be overcome, because it’s on the increase of the business margins that lies the key to success.

To make the year of 2019 a good year, and the following ones as well.