The Águeda Business Association, founded in 1974, is an Association with multisectoral embrace, in Águeda, and that has as its objective the representation of the interests of our associated companies.
Firstly, I would like to emphasize that in our region is headquartered a large group of companies in the Home & Office sector, being this a strongly industrialized and exporting region. Águeda has, as everyone knows, a strong business vocation, a vocation that is secular with the installation of the first hardware unit in 1896.
The project “Qualification & Competition: Qualification for the Competitiveness of the Home & Office Industry”, borns exactly to support companies in the exportation area, to leverage qualification, promote innovation and give companies more competences to compete in international markets, trying this way to reduce the unpredictability of the markets.
This way it was created the current project, as a result of a long-standing cooperation between the Águeda Business Association (AEA) and the Oliveira de Azeméis Municipality Business Association (AECOA). This is a project we are so proud to announce, undertaken in co-promotion between the two Associations and involving two distinct regions: the central region, where AEA is located and the northern region, where AECOA is located.
Finally I would like to appeal to our associates to live their Association, to participate in our dynamic, in our events and projects like this and to challenge AEA to find new ways, new opportunities, and to conquer, for Águeda, more business and more richness.
Commander Ricardo Abrantes
Águeda, as part of the Central Region of Portugal is a strongly industrialized region, where the Home&Office sector and the ones integrated in it, constitute a huge part of the productive dynamic. This one consists, essentially, of SME’s (Small and Medium-size Enterprises), with a strong export base. The main sectors are: lighting, hardware, ceramics, office furniture, bicycles, components for the industry of two and four wheels, electronic components and telecommunications.
There are currently several successful companies headquartered in this region. They are companies that bet strongly on product innovation and organizational innovation. They are companies that invest in new competitiveness factors, such as design, logistics, technological development, marketing and corporate image. Many of them, are present in the four corners of the world and compete in the most developed markets.
The region’s economy, sufficiently integrated and qualified, has risen to an industrial level of small and medium-sized enterprises with the capacity for innovation and technological development.
They are companies that have adapted to respond to an increasingly sophisticated national and international demand, as well as to respond the market by offering products in which design, quality, marketing and technological innovation are incorporated factors.
In this evolutionary process of the companies in this region and in what concerns the innovation and growth strategies, our Association considers that University of Aveiro, and in particular the School of Technology and Management of Águeda, as well as the University of Coimbra, play a fundamental role in this process of stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship.
The bond created between the companies and the University as a knowledge center is vital and has been reinforced in these recent years and has also been a development point through this project in its various activities.
The Oliveira de Azeméis Municipality Business Association (AECOA) was found by the determination of a group of entrepreneurs from Oliveira de Azeméis and of the City Council to constitute an associative movement colective of wills and capable of catapulting the business fabric of Oliveira de Azeméis to deserved levels of superior Quality and Competitiveness.
The Portuguese Economy does not sympathize with delays and stagnation. It depends on the ability to add value, to innovate, to incorporate more technological content into our products and to improve our capabilities in terms of the priorities of the future defined by external demand decision centers. In order to achieve this goal, it comes the project ‘Qualifica&Compete - Qualification for Competitiveness of the Home & Office Industry’, through the Collective Action Support System, under Compete 2020 | Feder.
First of all, we welcome the partnership formalized between AECOA and AEA to carry out this program. Nowadays, working for the common goals presupposes the establishment of consortia and the sharing of resources in order to achieve the same goals in less time and more effectively.
AECOA has more projects underway. Others will follow.
Our availability to be an attentive partner at every opportunity is total. Boosting the local, regional and national economy is the way to go… together!
António da Silva Rodrigues
Oliveira de Azeméis is a strongly industrialized municipality. Its business entreprises have an excellent national and, above all, international projection. Focused on foreign trade, this municipality is the 2nd most exporting municipality in the Entre Douro e Vouga region and the 7th in the Northern Region. This justifies its low unemployment rate, which is below the national average.
Oliveira de Azeméis (and in general the Northern region) presents a diversified business economy with medium / high technological intensity sectors. They take a special place in Molds, Plastics and Components for the Automotive Industry, which is associated with a strong Agrifood Industry, namely dairy products, husking and milling of rice and other cereals, as well as fermented beverages. It is also important to highlight Metallurgy and Metalworking, Machinery and Equipment for the Food Industry, as well as Footwear, Leather Goods and their Components. The Home and Office Items line also assumes relevance in this region, which are well-known examples of business units in the areas of Mattresses, Furniture, Glass, Copper, Metalware and Small Appliances.
The i4.0 industry is no longer new to local entrepreneurs, who take advantage of this ‘revolution’ as a level of excellence to define their own priorities for the future compared to those pointed by the decision-making centers of international demand.