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With a 3.4% increase, the Portuguese textile and clothing exports reached 531,4 million euro in July, a record that hadn’t been reached in 17 years, i.e. 2002.
“Still, these numbers will not make up for the negative results of the previous month. The overall results for the January to July period stand now at 3,207 million euro, a 0.9% drop from the same period of the previous year”, underlines the press release penned by Mário Jorge Machado, ATP’s president.
In June exports had suddenly dropped 12.6%, interrupting a cycle of continuous growth that had lasted for over 10 years. Justified by many with the accumulation of festive days – which in some places resulted in companies and institutions shutting down for nearly two weeks –, the return to growth in July seems to avenge this hypothesis.
Analysing by destination, exports grew 5.5% outside the EU, while in the European Community shrank by 2.3%. The ranking of destinations with a greater absolute growth rate is led by the US (an added 17 million euro, or +9%), followed by Canada (an additional 7 million euro, or +25%) and India (an added 5 million euro, or +107%).