China.org: On the other side, another of the purposes of that official trip was to increase the level of Chinese investments in Portugal. So, what is the strategy of Portugal to attract Chinese capitals?

Ambassador: It is also one of our main objectives and very important Chinese companies, like ZTE and Huawei, are already present in Portugal as well as Cisco, that created a trade service centre in our country. We started by identifying those sectors with a competitive edge that could be more attractive to the Chinese companies. We have identified some: car industry, (car components and assemblage), information technology, electronics, logistics, and service centres. To this effect, we have contacted already with government departments and very important institutions, like CCPIT, CCIIP, SASAC etc, as well as directly with companies. I have also visited several of the latter. Besides, we cannot forget also the important missions and events that have taken place this year in Portugal in connection with the promotion of our economic relations and investment. The Vice Minister of Trade, Mr. Jiang Zengwei, visited Lisbon in March, heading a delegation of businessmen and managers of different companies; we held the China-Portugal Economic and Business Forum in July, in which a large Chinese delegation was headed by the Minister of Commerce, Mr Chen Deming, and a very recent event this month of November: the Global China Business Meeting took place in Portugal, attended by several political leaders, businessmen, and world personalities, including the Prime Ministers of Portugal and Mozambique, and the Vice Prime Minister of East Timor. So we had a number of opportunities to establish exploratory contacts and carry out visits by Chinese corporations to Portugal. The global crisis is still unfolding which is not very propitious to investment, but we hope that, taking into account our comparative advantages, like our strategic geographical location, good deep water ports, comparatively speaking low costs, and access to the EU market, we will be able to favourably impress our Chinese counterparts about future perspectives of investment in our country.