OPINION WE MUST REINVENT THE INDUSTRY AND BUILD A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Mário Jorge Machado President of ATP's Board

I was re-elected President of ATP – Associação Têxtil e Vestuário de Portugal Board for a new mandate, which will run until 2025. In a period marked by an uncertain and volatile environment, the goal is to ensure stability of a strong, credible, and active organization, moving towards its 60 years of existence celebration. But it will have to renew and regenerate to design and build an even greater future for the entire sector.

We live in a period of remarkable change and instability. COVID-19 has disrupted development dynamics on an international scale, disrupting supply chains, and affecting the prices of raw materials and energy. This brought over the theme of reindustrialization and proximity production to government agendas, aiming to avoid third-party dependencies in distant geographies.

The globalization process suffered a sudden slowdown, and industries such as textiles, clothing, and fashion, dependent on long supply chains, are forced to reconsider and redesign all their business models. A combination turned out to be strongly catalyzed by the outbreak of war in Ukraine, along side with the effects of Western sanctions on Russia, had considerable impacts on the price of energy goods, raw materials, and food, determining an exponential increase in inflation and a rapid degradation of the global economic situation.

Furthermore, there is an environmental emergency: sustainability, circularity, de -