was re-elected President of the ATP – Associação Têxtil e Vestuário de Portugal Board for a new mandate, which will extend until 2025. With a period marked by an uncertain and volatile environment, the goal is to ensure the stability of a strong, credible, and active organization, moving towards the 60 years of existence celebration, and it will also renew and regenerate to design and build an even greater future for the entire sector.

We live in a period of remarkable change and instability. COVID-19 has disrupted development dynamics on an international scale, disrupting supply chains, and affecting the prices of raw materials and energy, which placed the theme of reindustrialization and proximity production on government agendas, aiming to avoid third-party dependencies in distant geographies.

The globalization process suffered a sudden slowdown, and industries such as textiles, clothing, and fashion, dependent on long supply chains, are forced to reconsider and redesign all their business models. A combination that turned out to be strongly catalyzed by the outbreak of war in Ukraine, as well as the effects of Western sanctions on Russia, with considerable impacts on the price of energy goods, raw materials, and food, determining an exponential increase in inflation and a rapid degradation of the global economic situation.

Furthermore, there is an environmental emergency: sustainability, circularity, decarbonization, and energy transition bring constraints, but also opportunities to the economy and human development.

In this context, the textiles and clothing industry must continue to seek excellence, as they have always done, through resilience, adaptability, flexibility, and risk minimization investment, which is essential to survive various setbacks.

On the ATP side, we will seek to meet this transformation, fighting to defend the sector and its member’s interests, particularly improving competitiveness conditions and promoting collective bargaining to ensure social peace and sustainable development. This transformation also requires promoting and giving visibility to the Portuguese textile and fashion sector and reinforcing the ATP’s proximity to its members.  Proximity can be reached by increasing ATP’s representativeness, asserting itself as the most remarkable and active association in the sector, and improving and diversifying services to meet the needs of companies.

Finally, I leave you an appeal. In this process of profound transformation and volatility, only in cooperation and with everyone’s effort we will be able to go further with better results. ATP has always had and will continue to have its doors open to everyone. With the spirit mission to defend and promote the Portuguese textile and clothing sector.

Join us! Let’s work together.