Modalities of imported technology in Portugal

Abstract

National importers of technology need, by reasons that are specified in this article, to be framed by a national tecnological policy able to impose the most correct choices under the internat economie point of view in accordance with the pursuit of the most general targets of national autonomy (relative). The technology imported by Portuguese enterprises after the Second World War, mainly after 1960, does not escape the traditional patterns presented by such a phenomenon in the most part of the underdevelopped countries, where a processus of industrialization is in progress. Nevertheless, in Portugal, the absence of an active technological policy has contributed to an importation of technology that, as it is proved in this article, only with many restrictions, even under the terms of imediate advantages, one may consider positive. One does not contend that such an importation may have brought circumstancial advantages, limited to the start and the normal working of some industrial undertakings. What one wants to remark is that, thought it has been a growth factor for important portions of productive activities, the inner nature of imported tecnology and the manner in which it was acquired by contract avoided that it may become an importance nucleus of development, as it would be most probable to happen if its acquisition had obeyed to certain rules of policy that, for instance, may privilege more the diffusion capacity of the acquired technology than its simple rentability at short term. The analysis of 326 contracts of technology imported in Portugal makes the source for the ideas expressed in this article.