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The Portuguese local government is subject to several controls that have evolved substantially throughout the last decades. This chapter offers a summary of the current state of these controls, particularly focussing on municipalities. The political parties of the opposition who sit in the Executive Board monitor all decisions. The Assembly exerts supervision and political control. The central government supervises legal and financial activities through a finance inspection body. The Court of Audit has a technical and jurisdictional control. Finally, the external auditor gives an opinion on the true and fair view of the municipality’s accounts, comprising both budgetary and financial statements. Because public financial management still mainly focusses on the (inputs-based) budget, conformity auditing takes precedence over other types of control.

This study aims to conduct a pertinent assessment of the concept of business competitiveness and how Portugal can progress in that field, for the sake of becoming a more sustainable and wealth-creator economy.

The research was elaborated with 65 in-depth interviews with expert persons from the Portuguese business ecosystem, who were asked to reflect on the state of the economy and competitiveness of the country.

There is much room for improvement in almost all areas of activity, in particular by promoting an innovative, value-adding and exporting private sector and a lighter and more efficient public sector. The conclusions point to modernisation of the Portuguese economy as a way of making it more competitive in a highly competitive and demanding global scenario.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first time that a reflection with experts of the local Portuguese economy has been carried out, especially after a difficult period of COVID.