Speeches

"Invest in America" Seminar, Lisbon

Welcoming remarks by
U.S. Ambassador to Portugal Thomas F. Stephenson
May 6, 2009

(As prepared for delivery)

Let me start by thanking all of you for coming today. We’re pleased to be co-hosting this event with the American Chamber of Commerce, and I’m happy to note that – to our collective knowledge – this appears to be the first time that a seminar focused on investing in the U.S. has been held in Portugal. We’re also pleased to hold this event in this wonderful facility at Caixa Geral, and I want to thanks CGD, FLAD, PLMJ, Delloitte, and the Council of American States in Europe for their support and sponsorship. 
Our panels of speakers will surely do a much more thorough job than I in defining the many reasons that the United States is -- or should be -- a priority market for Portuguese investments, but I’d like to take just a minute to point out a few things that may not be widely known.  
First, until the launch of the Department of Commerce’s Invest in America program just over a year ago, the United States was the only major world economy that did not have a national-level program to attract foreign direct investment or to create a more attractive climate for FDI [Foreign Direct Investment]. 
Although we got off to a late start, this new program has been quite active and we’ve been able to conduct outreach and attract new investments from all over the world thanks to this new initiative. Ms. Judy Reinke, who is with us today from Washington [where she is Regional Director for Western Europe, U.S. Commercial Service, U.S. Department of Commerce], will be able to tell you more about that in a minute. 
Although some may assume that FDI is but a small component of the U.S. economy, nothing could be further from the truth. In 2007 alone, the United States received $237 billion in FDI, which impacted the U.S. economy in many positive ways – from job creation and higher wages to new skills development, research, and rising productivity.
As a demonstration of magnitude, there are more people employed by Siemens in the United States (around 80,000) than by Motorola and Coca Cola combined. In the year and a half that I have been here, I have been impressed with the level of Portuguese investments flowing into the U.S. across sectors. We all know about EDP’s acquisition of Horizon Wind Energy in 2007, but we’ve also seen offices opened in Atlanta by Efacec, operations in Texas established by YDreams, Critical Software, and Martifer, a large Colorado investment made by BRISA, a New Jersey lab operation begun by Clinica Genetics, and so on. 
Many of these companies’ executives are with us today to provide case studies, which I think will be invaluable in helping you decide the best steps forward for your own companies as you look toward expansion and investment in our market.
I’d like to thank you once again for participating and hand the floor back to Dillon to introduce our next speaker. I wish you all a good conference today and much success in your future endeavors.
Thank you.