Spain’s cash transactions have grown to be worth 25% of the country’s output, hitting nearly €253 billion.

As ever, the black economy has rocketed with increasing unemployment, unabated at 26% of the population.

The largest market for red wine is now China, where 1.8 billion bottles were sold in 2013.

In just five years, sales have soared by 136%.

The Chinese market has pushed back the French one into second place, with the Italian market coming in third.

Riots followed demonstrations in Brazil over the World Cup.

Shop fronts and bank windows were smashed and cars burnt in Sao Paulo. Police clashed with a crowd of some 2,500 in running street battles, and up to 128 people were arrested.

ANA Airports expected a 4% rise in travellers next year, building on the 32 million who passed through Portugal’s 10 airports in 2013. The French-owned airport operator’s top man in Portugal, Jorge Ponce de Leon, said this is a conservative estimate.

The 2013 traffic figure was hugely encouraging at 32 million passengers, 1.52 million more than the year before.

The Tourism Association of the Algarve has launched an online promotional campaign "Algarve! Europe's number 1 golf destination" in many strategic markets.
 
The promotional spend is taking the opportunity to build on the publicity surrounding the award granted to the Algarve of "Best Destination for European Golf in 2014," in November 2014. This accolade was awarded by IAGTO, the International Association of Golf Tour Operators, the global trade organisation for the golf tourism industry.

The investment will still go ahead but an IKEA spokesman today confirmed that due to the scale of its complex project the store and associated shopping centre now will open in 2015, not in 2014 as originally planned.

The investment of €200 million and the goal to create 3,000 jobs is the same but the Swedish multinational is still in talks with the newly elected board of Loulé council and has had to move the opening date, “Recruitment will begin, probably in late 2014, but this still depends on the progress of the work," commented the IKEA spokesman.

 Águas do Algarve has at last launched a tender for a new water treatment plant to serve the citizens of the Portimão municipal area but already the planned size of the plant has been criticised as too small to cope.

The announcement of the launch of the tender for the design and construction of the new Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) at Companheira in Portimão was published yesterday in the Official Gazette.

The tender for the work to be commissioned by Águas do Algarve SA is based on a budgeted price of €12 million for the design and the construction of the new treatment plant.

A study from Deco was a result of gathered data from 18 private hospitals that showed that there is a shift from the state sector to private care as women are choosing to have the privacy and comfort of a private service when giving birth, but want to be near a public hospital in case of emergencies.
 
In most cases people have health insurance to cover the cost of up to €6,000 depending on the area of the country, the type of delivery and the length of stay necessary.