Desinvestimento industrial e as regiões portuguesas. Reflexos da mudança no espaço económico internacional

Resumo

INDUSTRIAL DIVESTMENT AND PORTUGUESE REGIONS WITHIN THE CHANGES IN THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC SPACE. The spatial impacts of capital mobility, especially foreign capital, are becoming increasingly complex and are extent, divestment is, in essence, another strategic option of firms and it may not be necessarily negative for regions. Still, the impacts are not identical to investment. In economic analysis, divestment in certain activities is seen as necessary to achieve regional economic restructuring. However, the time gap between the creation and destruction of activities frequently causes social and economic problems in regions. Starting with a conceptual framework of divestment, we then analyse the recent evolution of industrial employment and product in order to provide a macro-economic framework for the analysis of employment creation and destruction flows that follows. This analysis has a sectorial and regional perspective aimed at identifying different paths by regions. Finally, specific cases of foreign divestment, which have recently occurred in Portugal, are discussed, illustrating not only a micro-economic perspective of divestment but also the changes in the global value chains that point to a (re)positioning of the country in the international division of labour.