At the Vasicol factory in Porto de Mós, district of Leiria, the candidate emphasized the unit as “a success story,” employing approximately 600 people.
“It’s a story that should be told. It started with traditional pottery and, after two generations, with technology, the same family is developing business, exporting more than 98% today,” he remarked.
In addition to commercial results, the company “is also a success socially,” because “in an inland region of the country, it creates jobs, builds social fabric, anchors people to the territory, and that is very important,” he noted.
Gouveia e Melo highlighted Vasicol as an example of the need to “look at the interior of the country.”
“We don’t want a country with three speeds, it’s bad for the nation. We need to establish a new concept, a new social contract, that develops the country as a whole, with thriving businesses that are people-oriented,” he emphasized.
In Porto de Mós, Gouveia e Melo observed many immigrant workers—one third of Vasicol’s workforce:
“This is also a positive aspect. I talk a lot about immigration needing to include integration. The people here are fully integrated. They earn their salaries, regularize, in time, they regularize their status in the country, bring their families, and over one or two generations, they become fully part of our community,” he said.
For the former Chief of the Naval Staff, immigration plays a crucial role in renewing demographics:
“If we don’t renew our community, according to statistics, in 40 to 45 years, we would be practically half the Portuguese population today, that is, six million Portuguese. And that also weakens the country. An uninhabited country is a more fragile one,” he argued.
The candidate identifies Portugal as “the country of large cities, the country of the coast, and then the country of the interior”:
“It is a country with three speeds and that is bad for the country’s cohesion, it’s bad for the country’s economic potential, because we have a lot of unoccupied areas that could generate wealth and aren’t,” he stated.
Gouveia e Melo advocates the need to “look at the interior” and work towards having “a whole country”:
“We are, roughly speaking, between 60% and 70% of the per capita income of the most developed countries. Therefore, we must pull our carriage forward and not let it fall behind. Hence, ambition is necessary,” he concluded.
