With rare diplomacy the Economy Minister Pires de Lima today defused a potential ‘difference of opinion’ with Portugal’s president over economic growth projections by refusing to offer an opinion.
Pires de Lima said in a sober response to Cavaco Silva’s declaration that the economy will grow by an impressive 2% this year, beating the original government forecast of 1.3%, that "projections do not matter," adding that what matters is the competitiveness of the economy.
Pires de Lima is confident that growth will be higher than last year and wants to "help companies to be competitive and to open new markets in order to grow."
"I think that the Portuguese economy will grow in 2015, and grow more than in 2014” said Pires de Lima at the Employment, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness conference in Lisbon.
Cavaco Silva was in Paris at the OECD Council and said his latest projection was based on the fall in the oil price and the depreciation of the euro.
Several European leaders are visiting European Union countries to present the European Fund for Strategic Investments, the so-called 'Juncker Plan,' which aims to spend €315 billion in European economies. Today it was Portugal's turn.
The Prime Minister was not to be left out as he toured Terminal XXI at the port of Sines, and said that "the most important thing here is not whether we will grow about a tenth" but that it is better if the country's economy grows "more than a tenth," adding his usual platitudes about long-term trends and the "great effort" that has been made at a "high social cost" etc etc but did not mention Portugal’s public debt which has reached an eye-watering €231.1 billion according to figuers from the s Budget Technical Support Unit.
The PM was in Sines to announce that PSA International (Temasek Holdings) is investing €40 million in expanding the port terminal in Sines with 150 new jobs being created.
The Economy Minister is also confident that Portugal will be able to launch a number of projects under the Junker investment recovery plan for Europe which was presented this afternoon in Lisbon by the vice president of the European Commission, Jyrki Katainen.
"Portugal will have no difficulty in presenting good projects in energy and transport infrastructure during the final months of 2015 and then in 2016 and 2017," said Pires de Lima.
Asked to comment on the structural changes in Portugal agreed with the IMF, Pires de Lima said that the reform efforts by the government had not decreased with the approach of the autumn elections and he promised to press ahead with structural changes in the transport sector.
