Transfer of technology and structural dependence of Portuguese economy: results of an inquiry

Abstract

The progressive increase in the independence of Portuguese economy will be reached with too much difficulty without a deep analysis of the structural dependence of the national economy on the capitalist developed economies. This form of dependence has its grounds in the unchanging resort to foreign technologies and distinguishes itself from the functional dependence, that can be seen in the structure of the foreign trade, and from the institutional dependence, directly bound to the foreign direct investments. Trying to contribute to that analysis, the author deals with, theoretically and in the first part of this article, certain basic questions concerning the transfer of technology: modalities, contracts and financial charges. In the second part he presents and comments the results of an inquiry made at some Portuguese enterprises, broaching the following points principally: distribution (per sectors) of enterprises and of the payments made through transfers of technology; foreign origins of imported technologies and foreign destination of the corresponding financial fluxes; nature of imported technologies; payment conditions for royalties; double dependences resulting from the sharing of foreign exporters of technology in the capital of Portuguese importers.