The President of IPDAL spoke to the Chinese information agency Xinhua about the financial crisis in Europe and the opportunities coming from Latin America.

On December 20th, Paulo Neves explained, in an interview, the strategic value that IPDAL represents and the future initiatives that will be organized by the Institute. The importance of the recent Business Forums and the official visit to the Azores – where Portuguese businesspeople and Latin American Ambassadors accredited in Portugal participated – was highlighted as examples of activities that IPDAL carries out. Paulo Neves recalled that one of the objectives of IPDAL is “to bring diplomatic representatives from Latin America to know the reality of our country” and “to promote Portugal in Latin American countries at an economic, political-diplomatic and institutional, academic and cultural level”. The IPDAL leader also said that, despite the – increasingly less – lack of knowledge regarding Latin America, Brazil is not the only country with which Portugal maintains political and economic relations and made it known that countries like Venezuela – Portugal’s second largest partner in this region – Mexico and Colombia are equally important, due to the growing investment of Portuguese companies: “it is necessary to make both sides and their potential businesses known, because there is potential”.