Portugal wants Japan in its top-20 export destinations, after selling 385 million euros of goods to the Japanese market last year, an increase of 54.7% compared to 2022, according to the Portuguese embassy in Tokyo.
These results allowed to reduce to less than half the deficit of the trade balance of goods, to -119,4 million euros, according to the same source, quoted by Diario de Noticias.
Ambassador Vítor Sereno highlighted that “Portugal has managed to rise in the value chain and export goods with increasing added value, thereby increasing the competitiveness of the national corporate ecosystem and entering this sophisticated and demanding Japanese market”.
Portuguese companies looking for new markets in South Korea and Japan
“I have closely followed many of the projects that support this remarkable economic progress, continuing the priority I have always placed on pursuing active, dynamic, and creative economic diplomacy. Together with my working team, we are committed to making every effort to make Japan one of our TOP 20 export destinations”, says Vítor Sereno.
The Portuguese Embassy in Tokyo stresses that all these economic data now known are only related to the trade of goods with Japan in 2023. The values for the trade in services will be released by the end of the month, and positive results are also expected.
The Japanese economy even contracted in the last quarter of 2023, which, along with a weaker yen, made the Asian country move from the third to the fourth world economy, now behind the United States, China and Germany.
Japan, however, continues to be one of the major international economic players, home to technological giants such as Toyota or Mitsubishi.
