Without prejudice to strong multilateral cooperation, it is important to invest in bilateral cooperation that becomes an instrument of an internationalization strategy for the Portuguese economy, giving importance to business cooperation.
This would justify the existence of an entity, endowed with administrative and financial autonomy, which, in addition to support and incentives, had a consistent aid credit policy and which operated, when necessary, as a risk capital company, effectively carrying out the activity of managing shares in units considered to be of “strategic interest” for the cooperation and internationalization policy of the Portuguese economy.
Thus, the model to be adopted, in terms of Cooperation Systems, should involve, first and foremost, the creation of a Ministry of Cooperation and Development-MCD, which would supervise the Camões-Institute for Cooperation and Language (which, in essence, could maintain the powers it currently has), also having two General Directorates, namely, that of Political-Military Cooperation (whose activity could also be articulated with the Ministry of Defense) and the Directorate-General for Financial Cooperation.
The Directorate-General for Financial Cooperation would comprise four Directorates:
– Negotiation of the PVD’s Debt to Portugal;
– monitoring State-to-State Support;
– Multilateral Aid Monitoring;
– Monitoring Monetary and Exchange Cooperation Agreements.
The aforementioned Directorates should integrate a reduced number of technical staff, acting in coordination with the Embassies in countries benefiting from aid and/or with multilateral financial institutions or multilateral cooperation bodies, applying the principles of decentralization and delegation of powers, in compliance with the guidelines defined by the respective cooperation programs and the priorities established by the Executive.
An International Development Society-SDI (which could even be SOFID) should also be created, which should be in charge of business cooperation.
If it were to become SOFID, various “financial instruments” should be made available, from the possibility of using aid credit, to carrying out risk capital operations, through the management of shareholdings and also credit lines made available by the Portuguese State or the Banco de Fomento.
In this way, the aforementioned SDI (or, alternatively, SOFID) could have delegations in aid beneficiary countries considered strategic, with the mission of not only financing national companies interested in investing in PVD’s (taking into account the regional and sectoral priorities defined by the MC), but also managing shares in strategic companies and performing, in practice, the functions of a venture capital company.
The adoption of a Cooperation System of this type would make it possible to view the negotiation of CDF’s-Comprehensive Development Frameworks with the PALOP countries in a different way and would also make it possible to obtain greater negotiating capacity with our European partners, provided, however, that certain assumptions are met, with emphasis on the following:
– existence of a consistent Cooperation Program, seeking to maximize, in the long term, synergies that make it possible to take advantage of the dynamic competitive advantages of the Portuguese economy;
– a timely prior negotiation with the Ministry of Finance of the annual budget allocations that the MC may have, with the latter having a great deal of autonomy regarding the allocation of the resources made available to it;
– adequate coordination between the MC and the Ministry of Defense in relation to political-military cooperation, with the latter providing prior knowledge of the means made available to the MC;
– an effective coordination between the MC and the Information Services existing in the country, so that the political decision-making centers have all the data necessary to formulate consistent “intervention strategies”.
An additional aspect to consider is the fact that it is proposed that the New Cooperation System leads to a transformation of the Information System (in its external aspect), leading to the use of those responsible for cooperation in the Embassies and in SOFID’s own delegations as an integral part of what could be called Parallel Intervention Mechanisms.
Finally, it will be important to articulate the Cooperation Policy with a consistent strategy for the internationalization of the Portuguese Economy, where the AICEP-Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade of Portugal and the IAPMEI-Institute for Support to Small and Medium Industrial Companies, together with SOFID, should play a relevant role, in accordance with a new conception of intervention in the productive fabric of our Country.
No more, no less…
Economist and university professor