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Porto, the city that shapes a nation, as explained by international companies in town

Porto, the city that shapes a nation, as explained by international companies in town
17 Jul 2019

As simple: investors invest in a city if there are opportunities to make money. Porto is a magnet for new business investment, drawing in people and investors from different parts of the globe.

The online newspaper ECO has published an article where multinational companies, such as Natixis and Critical TechWorks explain why they were drawn to invest in Porto. According to a pioneer study that Porto City Hall ordered to EY-Parthenon, on the attractiveness of Porto and the Northern Region regarding FDI, there was an increase of 2.754 new jobs in 2018 as a result of foreign companies establishing in Porto.

That said, Porto features a wide range of characteristics that make the city attractive to investors. In the past five years, technological and industrial investment in the city of Porto have soared, with a rising number of investments by foreign venture capital or private equity firms and tech businesses that make more than 1,600 skilled jobs and several million euros pumped into urban rehabilitation.

"Porto has unique characteristics, which we consider truly beneficial four our internationalization processes. An innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem, a dynamic labour market and with excellent infrastructure, with state of the art facilities that allow us to provide our staff the best working conditions", affirms Natixis Portugal senior manager, Nathalie Risacher.

Natixis, the second-largest banking group in France, inaugurated its Technological and Information Skills Centre in Porto in 2018, but started operations in Porto in 2017, and the decision to establish the city of Porto as the Centre of Excellence for Natixis "was based on the talented and well-educated people that Porto has to offer as well as on the environment of innovation and entrepreneurship that spurs in that northern region" officials declared.

Critical TechWorks got down to business in the city of Porto, with the joint venture between Portuguese Critical software and BMW to develop the car of the future. Critical TechWorks, is shaking up the car industry as pioneer software to be used onboard BMW cars is being produced in Porto.

The process of targeting Porto as the ideal city to hosting Critical Software offices was supported by InvestPorto, the municipal entity which acts as a non-stop shop for investors at all phases of the investment process, providing tailor-made assistance in order to enhance investment processes.

Besides, Critical TechWorks CFO, Paulo Guedes, states that the company's expansion plans include hiring 600 people till December. In turn, Rui Cordeiro, the company's CEO revealed the ambitious goal of Critical TechWorks: "to reach the mark of one thousand employees by 2021", namely software engineers, cybersecurity experts, mobile app developers, data engineers and data scientists.

This state of affairs enabled the Northern Region of the country to achieve GDP growth two times faster than the national average.