Portugal has spent decades looking for investment. Now you have to learn how to manage success.

Portugal has spent decades looking for investment. Now you have to learn how to manage success.
For much of the last few decades, Portugal has been obsessed with one question: how to attract investment?
Governments succeeded each other. Public agencies multiplied international missions. Municipalities sought to attract companies. Business associations organized events, conferences and forums. The goal was always the same: to convince foreign investors that Portugal was a good place to invest.
Today, for the first time in a long time, I am beginning to believe that we are facing a different problem.
And, curiously, much more positive.
The challenge no longer seems to be to convince the world to look at Portugal.
The challenge becomes to ensure that Portugal can respond to the interest it is receiving.
The recent statements by the Minister of Territorial Cohesion on the creation of new business areas inspired by the Sines model deserve to be read carefully. Not only for what they say, but above all for what they represent.
When a government official admits that it is necessary to create new business centers because the existing ones are beginning to reach their limits, it means that something has changed.
For years we have heard about lack of investment.
Today we are starting to hear about the lack of space prepared to receive investment.
They are very different problems.
The case of Sines is particularly interesting because it represents a transformation that many have not yet fully understood.
For decades, Sines was seen by some as too ambitious a project for the Portuguese reality. There were those who questioned infrastructure, investments and strategic options. Today it has become one of the largest poles of investment attraction in Europe, accumulating industrial, energy, technological and logistical projects that exceed 25 billion euros.
But the most relevant thing is not even the numbers.
That´s what the numbers represent.
When international companies choose Portugal to install data centers, energy projects, advanced industrial units or critical infrastructures, they are not only investing in territory.
They are investing in a vision of the future.
They are betting that Portugal can play a relevant role in the new European economy.
And this is a profound change.
For many years we were seen as a peripheral market.
Today we are beginning to appear on the maps of energy, data, artificial intelligence, telecommunications and technological innovation.
Not by chance.
But because several of the major global trends are beginning to favor some of the characteristics that Portugal has.
We have renewable energy.
We have a location atlantic.
We have international connectivity.
We have political stability.
We have security.
We have talent.
And we have a geographical position that is once again gaining importance in an economy increasingly dependent on data, energy and resilient logistics chains.
The problem is that we often continue to discuss Portugal as if we were still in the nineties.
While the world debates artificial intelligence, digital sovereignty, energy security, and critical infrastructures, a significant part of the national debate remains stuck on important issues, but insufficient to respond to the challenges of the coming decades.
The truth is that the large investments that are coming are not limited to creating jobs.
Create cities.
They create new housing needs.
They create demand for schools.
They create demand for health services.
They create demand for mobility.
They create new supply chains.
They create new economic ecosystems.
And perhaps this is precisely where the biggest challenge lies.
Portugal has a tradition of discussing investment.
But he has much less experience managing accelerated growth.
Just look at what has happened in several regions where economic growth has come faster than urban planning. Housing became scarce. Infrastructure came under pressure. Public services were slow to keep up with the new reality.
If we want to avoid repeating these mistakes, we need to start thinking differently.
A data center is not just a technological building.
A factory is not just an industrial unit.
A major investment is not just a line in an economic report.
They are people.
They are families.
They are communities.
They are entire cities that can be transformed.
That is why I consider the intention to create new business hubs distributed throughout the national territory to be particularly important. Not only because they increase the ability to attract investment, but because they can contribute to something that Portugal has been seeking for decades: greater territorial cohesion.
Perhaps for the first time there is an opportunity to create new development centers outside the traditional locations.
In the interior.
At Centro.
In Norte.
In regions that for too long have seen economic growth concentrated in other territories.
But for this to happen, a word that we do not always associate with the Portuguese administration will be needed.
Execution.
Because the world doesn´t wait.
Investments do not wait.
Talent does not wait.
Companies quickly choose the places where they want to grow.
And the international competition is fierce.
Perhaps that is why the most important news of these last few weeks is not the existence of more projects or more investment.
The most important news is another.
Portugal is finally starting to face a problem that for decades it has wished it had.
The problem is no longer convincing the world to invest in the country.
The problem is to ensure that the country is prepared to take advantage of this opportunity.
And, honestly, I prefer this challenge a thousand times over the other way around.
Because countries don´t grow when they eternally discuss how to attract investment.
They grow when they learn to transform investment into prosperity, innovation, talent and quality of life.
Portugal may finally be reaching that moment.
Now it remains to be seen whether we will have the courage and the ability to take advantage of it.