Portugal, glittering prize for emerging nations {privatization}

[xchrom]

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1255321-portugal-glittering-prize-emerging-nations

On one side are giants like the public companies Eletrobras and Cemig (Brazil), the Three Gorges Corporation and the State Grid Corporation (China), and even Angola’s Sonangol, all from emerging powers and growing economies. On the other are companies of modest size on the global scale. Their shareholders have empty pockets, and the country is in deep trouble, forced to undertake a heavy program of privatisations imposed by a bailout plan.

Brazil, China and Angola, along with Germany and the United Kingdom, are the main potential buyers of Portuguese public enterprises, stocks or stakes in companies put up for sale. Energias de Portugal (EDP) and REN (Rede Electrica Nacional) are already on the table, and in 2012 privatisations will move on to the oil company Galp; the airline TAP; ANA, which manages the airports; CP Carga (rail freight); and CTT, Portugal’s postal service. Naturally, it’s the companies most open to international business and that carry out the greater part of their operations abroad that are generating the greatest interest.

But then, why these potential buyers and not others? The answer is in principle quite simple: because they have the money. It’s a question of price, and for giants such as Brazil and China, the price is even more enticing. Angola on the other hand is a special case, as are Germany and the UK. Here the interests are not merely financial.

A way to win favour with Germany

“Angola’s investments in Portugal have a strong political component: it’s a way for the country to assert itself in the Portuguese-speaking sphere, which it hopes to benefit from economically,” believes António Ennes Ferreira, a professor at the Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão at the Technical University of Lisbon. But it is also, he adds, a way of legitimising Angolan capital, scrutinised less carefully in Portugal than elsewhere, and to gain entry into other markets. Given the lack of transparency, the risk is that the precise identity of the investor may never be known.

[tabatha]

1. Poor Portugal - what a shame.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. And there you have the REAL motivation for "austerity"

an open invitation for the greedy to strip nations of their public assets.