Praise for Portugal's finest

<h>Outstanding performance</h> was a key criteria in determining the Best of European Business winners in Portugal. Two supermarket retailers took home prizes.

Eight of Portugal's leading companies were awarded a Best of European Business award in an official ceremony held at the Four Seasons Ritz Hotel in Lisbon with 160 people in attendance.

The country's traditionally strong industries turned out most of the winners, including companies producing pulp and paper, retail distributors and construction groups. The competition proved that the most successful enterprises are using a combination of innovation, diversification and investment overseas to maximize existing skills and resources.

In his opening speech, António Bernardo, Member of the Executive Committee of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, reminded the audience of the goals anchored in the revised Lisbon Agenda: to increase real growth to 3% and ensure social cohesion by 2010 through increased innovation, better regulation and deregulation of markets, improved working conditions and more integrated and improved financial services.

While political leaders seemed to be struggling with the objectives set, companies were achieving these growth-led goals across the continent, which had given rise to the competition, held in conjunction with the Financial Times, Jórnal de Negocios and the Department of Economics at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in the first place. In terms of innovation and particularly R&D investment, Europe was still lagging far behind its competition, including the OECD average. Here, Japan leads the pack with 3.1% of its GDP flowing into R&D. Patent registrations were also relatively week, when setting the formerly EU-15 against global competitors such as the United States. But there were positive aspects to be underlined as well: Europe was still the global leader in key manufacturing sectors, including car manufacturing, telecommunication, chemicals and petroleum and gas.