have recently written, in a weekly journal specialized in economic affairs, that we were heading towards a perfect storm; better still, facing the circumstances and the convergence of happenings, a more than perfect storm. An economic crisis joining the sanitary crisis, the disruption of the supply chains, the exponential increase in raw-materials, energy, transports and wages, corresponding to the clear shortage of all these productive factors simultaneously is the most evident expression of an unexpected political crisis, anticipating a highly likely financial crisis. The increase in inflation will determine the take off of the cost of money in international markets and the most indebted countries, such as Portugal, will be on the forefront of its negative impact, which will culminate in a social crisis. The most vulnerable will always be the ones to suffer the consequences of the preceding disparities.

In this context, transformation industries such as the textile and clothing ones are more exposed to this magna storm. They lack raw-materials, sacrifice the business margins, which are already short, to accompany its scarcity, to support the sharp increase of the price of transports, energy and even stand the inflation in wages, competing for talent without any possibility of reflecting the increase of production factors in products and services, at least on the short term and in a fair proportion.

The world has changed drastically and the pandemic was a mere catalyser of the transformation that was already in course. The fashion industry, as already mentioned, was and is under pressure as the shift in values of new generations of consumers will prove devastating to the more classic business models and to those who resist or ignore change.

It is a given that the Portuguese textile and clothing industry has many arguments to prevail, as the pandemic proved very well in many solid, well managed, resilient, proactive and innovative companies. However, it also revealed that there is a part of the production sector that doesn’t share the same skills and will fundamentally disappear in the short term. The market, under the pressure of the crisis, works even better by expelling those who are unable to adapt and evolve so that the best can make more progress.

The scenarios for the textile and clothing industry until 2030 are far from being catastrophic but will not allow complacency for those who don’t do their homework: betting only in efficiency without valuing creativity or innovation will only contribute to expanding the suffering of survival without a final award. The same goes for making a difference through knowledge or design, without guaranteeing the strength of the organizations’ capitalization and the productivity of the factors, which may mean a pointless and resource-wasting exercise without consequence.

We will be less than what we are, we will have to do well with much less, risking the cluster’s restructuring, strengthening the sector upstream and relocating the activities downstream where it is still easy to find plentiful human resources at lower costs and preferably close.

It is common to hear that after the storm comes bonanza. The unstable times we are currently facing will come to an end. However, I don’t believe we will return to the stage where we left in the beginning of 2020. We had worse things in the past and we amazed. There is no reason for repeating once more the performance of our best nature.