The recent IMF study on Portugal helps to put this issue at the center of the economic debate. Portuguese productivity remains far from the most advanced economies and one of the reasons given is clear: Portuguese companies have difficulty gaining scale. The IMF says that Portugal has a small presence of high-growth young companies, the so-called "gazelles", and that only about 0.1% of new Portuguese companies manage to achieve this status, well below the European average.

This should concern us. Not because there is a lack of capable entrepreneurs, but because growing in Portugal is still too difficult. Creating a company is no longer the main problem. The problem begins when this company wants to hire, invest, internationalize, raise capital, innovate and increase size. This is where bureaucracy, regulatory instability, difficulty in accessing venture capital, administrative costs, and a public culture that often seems to tolerate little survival better than big ambition arise.

For years we have become accustomed to praising SMEs as the backbone of the Portuguese economy. And they are, without a doubt. But a country does not increase wages, productivity and export capacity only with small companies. It also needs medium and large, technological, industrial, exporting companies capable of competing internationally. It needs companies that grow without being held back by each new fiscal, labor or administrative level.

Here politics has responsibility. Not just a government or an opposition, but the political class as a whole. Portugal continues to discuss structural reforms as if they were short-term ideological battles. Government and opposition rarely manage to build lasting consensus on productivity, taxation, education, capital markets, administrative simplification or the link between universities and companies. And without continuity, reforms never really reach the ground.

The result is known. We have good ideas, good founders and good technicians, but many companies are stuck in an insufficient size to compete in the world. The IMF precisely identifies the need to reduce bureaucracy, improve access to long-term capital, strengthen skills and remove regulatory obstacles to growth.

Portugal doesn't just need to create more companies. You need to let the ones you already have grow better. It needs to value those who take risks, those who hire, those who export and those who transform knowledge into wealth.

Because a country does not become more prosperous just by having many businesses.

It becomes more prosperous when it allows the best to grow.