Barreto Xavier: “New Report Cultural changes the way you look at the sector” – Jornal de Negócios – Portugal

Barreto Xavier: “New Report Cultural changes the way you look at the sector”

The Secretary of State for Culture believes new report Satellite Culture Account reverses the way you look at the sector and shows the sector’s contribution to the growth and development of the economy and employment.

Jorge Barreto Xavier believes that the creating a Culture Satellite Account report will attract attention and investment for Culture, either political, or actors. The Secretary of State for Culture said this Thursday, August 27th, the presentation of the report by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

Barreto Xavier (pictured), who began his intervention by praise the work done by the INE, after the recent controversies with the provisional data in the unemployment rate, contextualized data presented in the fragile economic period Portugal lived. For the Secretary of State, the recognize the value of culture in the economy and employment and the ability to quantify the sector’s contribution to the country’s development helps to demystify the back seat allocated to the sector.

“We often have difficulty explaining why culture is important, the feeling that we have trouble verbalizing and quantify this information. Quantification is an important thing,” said the Secretary of State for Culture.

Knowing that culture has a weight on top economy to food industries or agriculture sector allows to show that the cultural sector generates wealth, explains Barreto Xavier, noting that the data has a very useful both for decision-makers politicians as for the actors.

“Culture is attributed to vague questions, no priority, whose resolution is left after most important problems,” he criticizes. “The fact that we use the same language that is spoken when discussing trade and the economy is a very important step,” says the secretary of state.

With the report Satellite Culture Account “people will look at us with different eyes,” stresses, adding, “we are not a cost, are a wealth of value creation,” assures

However, Barreto Xavier makes an alert to the danger of quantification, despite the positive effects generated. “There is a tendency to speak of culture as essentially a market good.” Barreto Xavier asked not to be confused with commodification quantification and stressed the importance of culture for human development as a sector of greater relevance than the technology and science. “The way we look at the numbers depends on what we want to do. The numbers are what they are, but also what we want to do them,” he said.