The Algarve has become a one industry region reliant on tourism and allied services and despite the insistence of local councils on setting up business parks, most of these areas lie empty or only partially occupied.
Dreams of hi-tec companies invigorating the local scene, employing well educated graduates and exporting gadgetry far and wide have not come true.
Despite the 75 business parks littering the region, Loule council has decided to give it one more go and is relaunching its local park which is 100 companies below full capacity.
The Loule business park management is to develop a new promotional campaign with the support of the municipality and more free money, another €1.1 million regional grant.
This money will ‘improve access, signage and pay for a communication and promotional plan.’
The various councils’ enterprise zones were once seen as a sign of the Algarve’s go-ahead style but the region is dedicated to tourism and tourism only – no other business sector comes close to the €10 billion a year generated by the Algarve's sunshine and sand.
The chairman of the Algarve's regional development body, David Santos, cheerily announced the new Business District of Loulé scheme to a business audience last night but with the highest unemployment rate in the country, and 75 largely empty business parks, his speech was not an easy one .
The Loule commercial area is one of the best as it does have 130 resident companies but even the Business Association of the Algarve’s president Vítor Neto agreed that tourism remains the hub of the region’s economy, recalling fondly the time when the Algarve "exported figs and almonds,” which now are imported from Turkey for Portugal’s supermarkets.
Loulé mayor Victor Aleixo took the opportunity of the relaunch of his business park to have a go at the adverse affects the motorway toll payment system has had on local businesses but this sort of new tax would have been laughed off by vibrant volume exporters had there been any.
The fuss over the tolls could be an indication of the fragility of local businesses and their inability to adsorb costs.
In the meantime, businesses can get good deals if they move to one of the many business parks but the realities then of doing business in Portugal must carefully be evaluated.
In the 'sunshine vs red tape' analysis that many companies already will have done, the empty business parks littering the Algarve show the results.
