Exporting & Importing in Porto & northern Portugal
The PortugalWorks team is led by Charlie Cutler, who is British but has lived in Portugal since 1998 and runs several export businesses, including CorkLink (a cork supplier), LusoBarrel (a wooden barrel exporter) and PortoEvents (an events organizer for Porto and the surrounding region). PortugalWorks is also a leather and clothing sourcing agent, to give our clients direct access to the very best manufacturers in northern Portugal.
We believe that Portugal is a land of tremendous opportunities, given is low cost base, highly skilled workforce, hunger for economic growth and development, European Union funding opportunities, political stability, first class transport infrastructure, pro-business economic policies and incentives and the great quality of life available for those coming to live here. The trauma of the 2010 bail-out when the country was unable to service its debts turned out to be a turning point in economic policy and Portugal now enjoys a much more pro-business environment that has led to a dramatic growth in exports and a general turnaround of the country’s economic fortunes.
We are a small company that is passionate about releasing Portugal’s potential as an exporter of high quality goods with a culture of Corporate Social Responsibility; Portugal can be an extremely viable alternative to Asian manufacturers, offering premium quality, proximity to European markets and environmental and social responsibility.
Our Latest News
Why you might need a clothing sourcing agent in Portugal
Clothing sourcing agents sometimes get a bad press - are they just parasites living off the hard work of factories who actually produce the clothing or do we have a genuine contribution to make in making the whole process of sourcing clothing from overseas a more...
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Handmade accessories, including tiaras
We have done some work recently on making some truly stunning tiaras and other accessories for some premium brands. Whilst we would not share here the work we do for our clients, we produced some of our own examples to demonstrate the kind of tiaras and other...
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Fine needlework, embroidery & handmade accessories
Whilst the mass-market for clothing, footwear and accessories is clearly going strong with the unstoppable rise of fast fashion and single-wear outfits there is a parallel trend which is for durability, uniqueness and handmade quality. Here at PortugalWorks, we have...
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Evolution of textile and leather sourcing from Portugal
The Portuguese textile sector was worth around €4.9 billion and leather €200 million in 2021 and both have been growing sales over the last decade or so. But these raw numbers do not tell the real story of the changes that have been going on in both sectors. As...
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Portugal maintains its position as Europe’s leading bicycle manufacturer
Around 80 kms south of Porto is the industrial city of Porto - it is one of the light engineering hubs of Portugal, but above all it is famous for making bicycles. In 2020 Portugal produced 2.6 million bicycles (half a million more than the second largest European...
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Travel writers required for our new site about rural tourism in Portugal
We are launching a new site, HiddenPortugal , which is all about the less discovered corners of Portugal, to help tourists find out more about what Portugal has to offer outside of the big cities and tourist hotspots. We are looking for writers who have an intimate...
read moreThe PortugalWorks consultancy business helps foreign firms to invest in Porto and northern Portugal and also works with Portuguese firms looking for help to access export markets. We also help foreign firms to distribute their goods into the Portuguese market, by helping to find a suitable distributor and managing the relationship with them and represent international trade shows in Portugal for trade fairs looking for Portuguese exhibitors for their events.
On this site we chart the economic business development of the country both through the prism of our own businesses and also a more general look at the economy and would encourage anyone interested in doing business with Portugal to contact us.