“We really need a lot from our Portuguese community for it to help us make known and find the best channels and places to promote Portuguese products in Canada”, said Luís Miguel Ribeiro.

The AEP Foundation (Associação Empresarial de Portugal Foundation) has planned for November 2nd to 6th, to carry out a business mission to Canada, where it intends to officially launch the Global Diaspora Network in the country.

"The Canadian market has a lot of potential, because it is a developed country, with many business opportunities, where we can find thousands of Portuguese," he said.

The official praised the fact that during the pandemic, due to the lockdown, many of the initiatives were carried out digitally, but warned that they never stopped working, "knowing cases of Portuguese people who are a source of pride", of entrepreneurs who launched the their businesses, which lead institutions, for the “love of their homeland, want to remain linked to Portugal”, as “true ambassadors of the country”.

However, he acknowledged that Canada “is not an easy market”, being quite “competitive, distant, with other large markets around it”.

“The Portuguese continue to look very carefully and continue to study this market and we at AEP level continue to carry out business missions to these markets, but these are markets that take time to gain a stronger presence and to have more expression in what is our trade balance and our exports”, stressed Luís Miguel Ribeiro.

As for Portuguese products, these are very different, coming from an origin that “is highly valued by a particular niche of customers”.

“Because our endogenous products are produced inAssociação Empresarial de Portugal Foundation a country that is concerned about climate change, workers' social conditions and their well-being, a country that increasingly produces high quality products, with an increasingly appealing design, has having made a great evolution in this direction, this is a market with purchasing power, in which its high quality products can be successfully implemented and successful”, he stressed.

In this sense, in a market of this size, due to its purchasing power, any of the products, whether technological or traditional, can have a market, “depending on the competitiveness of that product and the conditions in which it can be placed there”.

Promoted by the , the Global Diaspora Network is an important tool for “bringing closer and helping entrepreneurs to know more easily the market, the conditions and conditions of that market”.

The platform that unites Portuguese people around the world will make entrepreneurs aware of the main challenges, difficulties, but also the opportunities for that same market, but also to "democratize the access of smaller companies, broadening our export base to this market" .

The Global Diaspora Network has more than 7,500 Portuguese subscribers, presence in 155 countries, and more than 10,500 companies inserted.

In addition to the connection to the diaspora, the platform aims to enhance the Lusitanian Routes (promotion of commercial establishments national products), Portal do Investidor (to facilitate and accelerate business on a global scale), and the Diaspora Business Intelligence (to make the diaspora known in detail).