Portugal has today a more competitive economy than six years ago. According to data from the European Commission, since 2016 Portugal has shown improvements in innovation and sophistication of the companies and in its infrastructure network, which allowed it to increase by about 13% the country's level of competitiveness against the European average and overtake Spain in the European ranking.

The conclusions of the European Union's Regional Competitiveness Index, reveal, for example, that over the past six years, among the 27 member states of the European Union, Portugal was the country that most improved in the development of new technologies in the production of innovative products and processes - which is visible by the number of new patents registered over this period.

According to the European Commission, the national economy's level of innovation went from a state of competitiveness equivalent to only 62% of the European Union average in 2016 to a level very close (97%) to the average of the countries in the region at the end of last year.

The Centre and North of the country contributed greatly to this achievement, which saw the levels of innovation competitiveness of their companies more than double between 2016 and 2022, compared to the average of the countries of the European Union.

According to the European Commission, Portugal was even able to move from a level of competitiveness of "business sophistication" below the European average in 2016, to today being one of the ten economies of the European Union with the highest competitiveness in this regard, staying ahead of countries like Ireland, Germany, Denmark and Spain.