Portugal’s population will decrease by almost two million people by 2060, from the current 10.5 million to 8.6 million, according to a study by Portugal’s respected National Statistics Institute.
In addition to the predicted population decline there will be a steady, strong rise in the number of older residents leading to a situation where fewer and fewer workers are paying for more and more pensioners.
Cavaco Silva, the President of the Republic of Portugal, warned today that Portugal will not find competitiveness by paying low wages and challenged business leaders to seize on the indicators of economic growth in the country and invest by paying employees ‘properly.’
"I have said and I will repeat that Portugal certainly will not find its competitiveness by paying low wages. There are many other countries in Europe and outside Europe with lower wage levels than in Portugal," warned the well-pensioned President.
An impressive performance in the hotel sector saw €609 million flow into the Algarve’s economy last year, up 4% from 2012, according to a report from Algarve Tourism released today.
Tourism in the region ended 2013 with a rise in the number of guests, overnight stays, income and occupancy rates, reads the quarterly newsletter, misic to the ears of trourism bosses, business owners and the exchequer.
The destruction of long sections of clifftop in Praia da Luz and Porto de Mos, Lagos, 'aims to avoid future landslides,' according to the Portuguese Environmental Agency which is carrying out various ‘controlled collapses’ at the top of the landmark cliffs.
A 'controlled collapse' is agency-speak for using a JCB at the cliff top to scrape away loose areas of rock.
A computer error is stopping thousands of taxpayers paying fines for overdue car tax (IUC). More worryingly, the government has admitted that some have unwittingly ended up paying fines for other car owners.
The complaint was made not by a consumer group, but by the president of the Trabalhadores dos Impostos (Union of Tax Office Workers.)
British expats must be made to feel more valued by the UK government to encourage more expats to vote, according to a cross-party group of parliamentarians, but only those who have been away for not more than 15 years.
The group came about after “it became apparent that there was a serious problem of non-registration by British citizens living abroad.”
The Danish branch of Thomas Cook has launched an advertising campaign to get couples to visit romantic cities in the hope of boosting the declining birth rate.
“Do it for Denmark!” claims that Danes have 46% more sex while on holiday and that 10% of the population was actually conceived by parents who were holidaying out of the country.
Many orchards in the West Country were swamped for weeks during the wettest winter on record.
The floods left the UK’s 17,300 acres under threat and there are fears that many of the millions of trees planted in the last ten years may not survive.
