APQuímica cluster response to the COVID-19 crisis
Source: TSF Rádio Notícias
The chemical industry integrates up to 95% of all the goods produced, according to a European Council study. In Portugal, the cluster represents about 11,000 M€ in annual turnover and accounts for 12% of exports. An action across the value chain, which quickly adapted to this new pandemic reality.
(...)
The COVID-19 outbreak also led A4F - Algae for Future to activate a contingency plan adjusted to our 50 employees safety that are allocated by the Innovation Laboratory, by the industrial production units, as well by the microalgae pilot unit. And even in the current circumstances, A4F started a R&D project with a a budget of around 10 M€, to be executed in a 4 years period, which involves several partners from different European countries. In the words of Nuno Coelho, the Executive President of A4F: "For many years, we have maintained part of our activity focused on R&D projects and activities, financed by the EC and involving international consortia, with the implementation of our Security Plan, we have managed to maintain a level of activity as expected (with minimal readjustments), maintaining our responsiveness. I would like to give a note: we can testify that, even in these circumstances, it was possible to start one of the biggest projects that we had approved in the recent past (almost 10M € in 4 years), and which involves several companies from different European countries. Of course, we all had to make adjustments (we started working on video conferences, etc.), but we see it important to give this testimony: circumstances have changed, we had to adapt, but there was no need to stop.
Regarding our commercial projects, the ones we are executing in Portugal, the rhythm slowed down, without ever having to stop. International projects have suffered execution readjustments, but we have no expectations that there will be any breach of contract. In addition, working in Microbiology, we made resources available to our partners, having given our (modest) contribution to the national scientific community, in order to minimize (or shorten) product development cycles related to the current COVID-19 pandemic. "(...)
To listen the entire program, follow the link.