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Remembering "in the former half of our Adjustment Programme we had to attend some very concrete, clear and present dangers" such as "the urgent task of financially stabilising our economy", the Prime Minister stressed that Portugal "had to focus on the correction our very large financial imbalances by cutting public spending, reforming State Owned Enterprises, and meeting our national budget targets".
"Now, preparing our post-troika future is one of our biggest challenges yet. Our strategy of gradually resuming market access has been put in place right from the beginning", added Pedro Passos Coelho. And just last week Portugal "made a 10-year bond emission which was very well received by investors from all around the world and of all kinds of institutional profiles", he added.
"The success of this strategy is extremely important, not only because after June 2014 we will no longer have access to official funding from our European partners, but also because the private sector has faced in these last two years a very severe credit scarcity as a result of our sovereign debt crisis", said the Prime Minister.
"After a first phase of structural reform we are now entering a second phase of reform for growth and jobs", stressed Pedro Passos Coelho, remembering "last month, the Portuguese Government announced its short and medium-term strategy for growth based on the industrial renewal of our economy". The main pillars of this strategic are lowering of business taxes, simplification of administrative requirements, acceleration of apprenticeship and occupational training system and the creation of a financial institution focused on lending to Small and Medium Enterprises.
"Soon, we will announce our strategy for other sectors such as mineral resources and services", added the Prime Minister, saying his Government wants to "increase the share of exports in our economy and give a new and sustainable impetus to our tradable sector".
Portugal is diversifying the range of exportable goods and services and its destination markets to be able to compete in the global economy: "As long as we are properly prepared, Portuguese businesses and Portuguese citizens will successfully bring their creativity and the fruits of their labour to the world and participate more actively in the global economy. That will be the basis of our future prosperity", said Pedro Passos Coelho.
And concluded, saying equality between the public and private sectors, intergenerational equity and sustainability are the three general principles that will take place on the second phase of structural reform of the State.