Good practice:

Programa Portugal Indústria 4.0

Through the Industry 4.0 initiative, of the National Strategy for the Digitization of the Economy, the Ministry of Economy intends to generate favourable conditions for the development of national industry and services (SMEs) in the new paradigm of the Digital Economy, through a set of measures that are based on three axes of action:
-Accelerate the adoption of i4.0 by the Portuguese business community
Provide the economy with knowledge and information through the Capacitar i4.0 program, implemented in conjunction with the InCoDe.2030 initiative, of which IAPMEI (Portuguese Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation) is one of the driving agents, and promote a set of tools that facilitate business transformation.
-Promote Portuguese technological suppliers as i4.0 players
Capitalize on the scientific and technological ecosystem, creating a favourable context for the development of i4.0 start-ups that can present projects with an impact on the digitalization of the economy.
-Making Portugal an attractive hub for investment in i4.0
Communicate Portugal as a HUB for sharing experiences and know-how to attract resources, creating favourable conditions (legal and tax) for investment in Industry 4.0.
The Industry 4.0 program is currently in Phase II, which includes a set of accelerating measures and recommendations based on three axes: Generalize, Empower and Assimilate. Having been developed based on the contribution of more than 50 entities.

I4.0 has a budget of up to 2.26 billion EUR, through PT 2020, for the following instruments: Vale i4.0 (global allocation of 12 M€, will cover 1500 companies, each voucher has a unit value of 7,5k€); Qualification of SME; Productive Innovation; “Research and Technological Development” Programs.

95% of the 64 measures defined in the i4.0 program have already been implemented, covering more than 24 thousand companies and 550 thousand people. In the future, it is intended to train 200 thousand more workers and finance more than 350 transformational projects.
With an inclusive approach, supported by the know-how of more than 50 public and private entities.

We can infer that Portugal has a good level of preparation than current competitiveness, revealing that the 4th Industrial Revolution is a clear opportunity to blur the typical barriers to the competitiveness of the country, such as the lack of scale of the internal market and peripheral location.

The Industry 4.0 Program is a lever for achieving the objective of a decade of sustained economic convergence with the European Union, as part of the National Strategy for Horizon 2030.
The progress of the industrial sector and SMEs in industry 4.0 is directly linked to economic growth. The convergence for the group of leading countries in the i4.0 context, may represent an additional GDP growth (in Portugal only) compared to the forecast of 1.8% / year, filling and exceeding the stipulated convergence objective.
The context of i4.0 in Portugal is marked by the existence of three distinct groups of companies regarding the level and pace of assimilation of the i4.0 concepts, with companies leading the implementation of the i4.0 concepts (based on a vision of what it can represent for the market, and in its own resources and skills), also “mid-tier” and “laggard” companies that need support for progress in i4.0.