Lisbon,Sept 7, 2025 (Lusa) - The Secretary of State for Fisheries and the Sea told Lusa that Portugal will have the largest Portuguese business representation at Sea Week at Expo 2025 Osaka, Japan, which runs from 17 to 22 September.
The international exhibition will have a week dedicated to the sea, between 17 and 22 September, and "this fits very well because our [Portugal's] pavilion, which is having a huge turnout, is all (...) geared towards the sea," stressed Salvador Malheiro, who will also be attending Expo Osaka.
"We have all the conditions to make a splash there," he emphasised.
"As part of this week of the sea, we're going to have the largest Portuguese business representation at this entire exhibition," continued the Secretary of State, pointing out that around 28 million visitors are expected at the international exhibition and that Portugal is expected to attract around 5% of this number.
"When I talk about Portugal's biggest business mission, we're talking about the presence of 15 Portuguese organisations, such as seven canning companies, two fresh frozen companies, two aquaculture companies, three associations and then, of course, Docapesca," he said.
Therefore, "we really want to boost our export and internationalisation capacity in the fish sector, because we have already identified that the blue economy is once again a major challenge for Portugal these days," he said.
This mission "has been planned for a long, long time, and the main organisation responsible for it is Fórum Oceano, which ended up inviting both our Directorate-General for Maritime Policy and Docapesca to collaborate," he said.
The Secretary of State will accompany the mission for most of the days: "I'm also going to try to show interest here, to show how important and strategic the maritime sector is for the Portuguese Government and to take advantage of this opportunity to make ourselves known in various aspects."
Salvador Malheiro will participate in various activities as part of Ocean Week at Expo Osaka.
"At the level of the Ocean Forum, which will take place from 17 to 19 September, there will be a strong focus on what are, which is a success story in Portugal, the Nautical Stations," as well as on business success stories.
As far as the Directorate-General for Maritime Policy is concerned, "the idea here will be much more to favour Portugal's international connections," he continued.
"We're going to have a moment with Japan and Brazil, very much geared towards ocean literacy" and "there's also going to be a moment when we're going to sign a series of cooperation declarations and present the National Strategy for the Sea 2021-2030", he listed.
On Docapesca's side, "there will be a major business promotion at the Portugal Pavilion", where there will be gastronomic demonstrations, fish tastings and various “business to business” meetings between 24 and 26 September".
Japan, "in fact, is a fantastic market for us, which we have to take advantage of," he said.
Although Japan has a "long tradition of fish consumption, Portugal is the country with the highest per capita consumption in the world", followed by Japan, South Korea and Iceland.
He emphasised that Japanese companies linked to the sector represent “an aggregate turnover of more than €19 billion”, which illustrates the “potential” that Portugal has here.
"We have a Gross Domestic Product [GDP] of around 5% that comes from the blue economy, but we are all aware that the potential to increase this figure is very, very great," he acknowledged.
"Hence all the effort that has been made in terms of internationalisation, even in terms of innovative projects that have been very well received by the international community, and even when I was in Nice, I could see that we have projects that are clearly at the forefront in this area," he said.
In addition, 30% of Portuguese waters "are under our jurisdiction as marine protected areas, we have great momentum here, not only with the Azores, but also with the recent marine protected areas in mainland Portugal", "we are also pioneers in the satellite account of the sea, something that no one has ever dared to advance, which has to do with quantifying the reality of our entire blue economy", he said.
That's why "we're going to take this opportunity to make ourselves known, to connect even more with other international institutions, but above all, we want to take our sea abroad" and "that can only be done with our institutions, with our companies", he defended.
In short, Portugal will promote Portuguese companies and products, try to find strategic partners in Japan, have contacts with distributors, importers and partners, strengthen the institutional network and "prepare new challenges in future cooperation", he concluded.
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