A N N U A L R E P O R T A N D A C C O U N T S - CMVM

Management Report of the Board of Directors - Financial Year 2008
In Sao Tome and Principe, 90% of export revenues still
today come from cocoa monoculture, while 70% of its food is
imported and the industry simply limits itself to transforming
agricultural products. The Government aims to improve the
islands’ infrastructures to allow both convenient tourism
development and the creation of other revenue sources. The
largest trade partners are the European Union countries (60%
Portugal) and Angola.
Tunisia is another market in which the Teixeira Duarte Group
operates through its investee company SOMAFEL, S.A. This
country’s GDP is estimated to have grown by 5.1% and the
inflation rate would have reached 5%.
In Ukraine, domestic policy has remained highly unstable,
aggravated by the difficult relations with Russia, with
consequent effects on the economy, mainly in the
weakening of the currency and the deficit increase. In 2008,
GDP growth slowed down to 2.1% and the average inflation
rate was 25%.
In Venezuela, GDP grew by 4.9% in 2008, not only because
it is one of the world’s largest oil exporters, but also owing to
the fact that the Country is going through a period of
significant public investment in the modernisation of road and
harbour infrastructures, in the creation of new railway lines
and, most of all, in social facilities: housing, health, safety,
among others, as well as in works related to water supply and
basic sanitation.
III. GLOBAL OVERVIEW
- COMPANY AND GROUP PERFORMANCE:
Teixeira Duarte is proud of the operating rules and guiding
principles that have governed its operations for more than 80
years, and which it has kept constantly updated but
unchanged in their in essence, encouraging the growth of the
Group.
Its operations are basically characterised by widespread
decentralisation with in-depth information and support, careful
selection and training of staff, a philosophy of corporate
responsibility and committed entrepreneurial performance. An
example of this within the Company is the Site Manager and
his relationship with the client.
This consistent relationship between autonomy and
responsibility, which involves all of the Group’s staff, requires
careful and strict compliance with the tasks allocated to each
employee. Its end result is the integration of a strong,
sustained and efficient risk control system that delivers
extremely satisfactory practical results.
It has been felt and confirmed that remaining loyal to this way
of being and acting has received a very gratifying response,
not only as a production unit, but also as a training centre for
personal and collective improvement within an enormous
group of employees that increased significantly in 2008, as a
result of the signing of numerous contracts and the
acquisition of new companies. Teixeira Duarte Group thus
achieved an average annual number of 13.157 employees
and, by the end of the year, a total of 13.362, compared to
10.717 and 12.237, respectively, recorded in the previous
year.
The inevitable impact of this approach on the lives of such a
large number of individuals and of the many other entities,
with which Teixeira Duarte interacts directly and indirectly,
implies being fully aware of the Company’s social
responsibility commitments.
The importance of this challenge is positively accepted,
facing it with the growth and diversification that it pursues
with total commitment, sure to fight for the extensive
and wholesome principles of plain-dealing, rigour,
professionalism, quality, fulfilling its obligations and defending
its rights, all of which it expects, without being presumptuous
in any way, all its collaborators to participate in.
It is based on these business pillars that, from a corporate
perspective, efforts to strengthen its capacity and dimension
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