Despite a year marked by the Covid 19 pandemic, which threw the Portuguese economy and its main trading partners into stagnation and retrogression, the county of Vila Nova de Famalicão managed to maintain, in 2020, the position of most exporting municipality in the North region, and the third place as the most exporting municipality in the country, just after Lisbon and Palmela.
The latest edition of the Statistical Yearbook of the North Region, published at the end of the year by the National Institute of Statistics, confirms Vila Nova de Famalicão's position at the level of foreign trade of the country, also showing a very positive balance of trade, considering the national and international context.
The health of the balance of trade continues to be one of the factors that deserves most attention, with Famalicão achieving the feat of presenting a positive balance of 765 million euros (m€), the result of a difference between exports (1,746,464 m€) and imports (981,278 m€). The municipality is thus one of the municipalities that makes the greatest net contribution to the national economy.
"Despite the downward trend of the economy due to the pandemic, Vila Nova de Famalicão managed to remain as one of the municipalities that contributes most to the national economy. We are a territory that produces, that works, that doesn't give up", says the Mayor, Mário Passos.
For the future, the mayor is optimistic and believes that "with the resilience and entrepreneurship of the famalicenses we will be able to overcome the adversities caused by this pandemic and continue on the path of innovation and industrial pioneering of the country".
With regard to the weight of the various sectors in the municipality's exports, the textile and clothing sector continues to represent the largest slice of exports, followed by the automotive components sector, metalworking and, finally, agri-food.
Meanwhile, according to preliminary monthly data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), exports by famalicense companies accumulated until November 2021 a growth of 23.86% compared to the same period of 2020 and of 4.12% compared to 2019, which brings new encouragement to the business fabric. At the national level, and with regard to the textile and clothing sector, exports accumulated until October a growth of 15.2% compared to the same period of 2020 and 1.5% compared to 2019.
It should be noted that the export strength of the famalicense municipality has been known and recognised for several decades, with the municipality being home to some of the largest national companies. That which is the main economy of the North of Portugal has in its ranks nearly 15,000 companies, representing a turnover of around five billion euros. Of these, almost two thousand companies are in the manufacturing industry, making an important net contribution to the national accounts and to the employability of the country.