AICEP boosts presence in Asia

Miguel Frasquilho

Portugal’s AICEP Global Trade and Investment Agency plans to open offices in Dili, East Timor and Seoul, South Korea, this year and in Mumbai, India, and Astana, Kazakhstan, by the end of 2016, the agency’s head, Miguel Frasquilho, recently said.
Following a four-day visit to China, Frasquilho told Lusa news agency that Asia continues to be the most economically dynamic part of the world, “which justifies our reinforced presence.”
In Asia, besides three offices in China (Beijing, Shanghai and Macau), AICEP is represented in Japan, Saudi Arabia, India (New Delhi), Indonesia, United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Singapore.
During his visit to China the AICEP chairman met with Chinese investors in Shanghai and visited the Huawei multinational’s headquarters in Shenzhen, where a group of 12 Portuguese students finished a two-week training course.
The students from the High Technical Institute, University of Aveiro and Leiria Polytechnic Institute were the first covered by the five-year cooperation protocol signed in 2014 by AICEP and Huawei.
China has become one of the major investors in Portugal. Estimates indicate that nearly 10 billion euros of Chinese capital has been invested in the Portuguese economy since China Three Gorges won the tender to privatize 21.35 percent of EDP’s capital in December 2011.
“Economic relations between Portugal and China at investment level and vis-à-vis trade have never before been so strong; China is currently among Portugal’s ten main trading partners,” Frasquilho said. MDT/Macauhub