Two local movers and shakers, both marketing professionals, have set up the Algarve’s first Digital Marketing Conference.

SHARE Algarve is supported by Vilamoura Word and will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Vilamoura on February 4^th.

Controversial Portuguese drug company Bial has been given a €37.4 million research grant despite having misued a payment made for scientific studies in 2015.

Bial, made internationally famous after the death of a volunteer drug tester in France last January. Others were hospitalised in the BIA 10-2474 molecule tests that went horribly wrong as the company searched for a treatment for Parkinson’s disease at the Rennes laboratory of Biotrial.

Deco, Portugal’s ever-vigilant consumer protection body, has found "millions of bacteria" in hamburgers being sold by local butcher’s shops.

Salmonella and E. Coli, of faecal origin, have been found in samples. This can lead to serious infection so Deco has warned consumers not to buy hamburgers or any meat that already has been minced.

The Portuguese trade balance with Angola has hit its lowest point since 2010 with less than €1.6 billion in goods exported last year, a year-on-year drop of over 30% but Portuguese businesses are still keen to trade.

Oil imports from Angola to Portugal also dropped, by 22%, but "Things can only get better," according to a group of 17 Portuguese businesses taking part in the Angola-Portugal Business Forum in Luanda this week, organised by the Portuguese Business Association, (AEP).

Luís Lima, the president of APEMIP, the Association of Professionals and Companies of Real Estate Agents of Portugal,  anticipates a 30% growth in the real estate market this year, alongside a cracking year for tourism.

The one proviso noted by Lima is “if the State doesn’t mess things up.”

Portugal’s national airports operator, ANA, is to sign an agreement with the government to develop the Montijo air base as Lisbon’s second commercial airport.

ANA management are preparing for a mid-February announcement of the long-awaited government decision to transform Montijo, in a deal which also may involve an extension of ANA’s 30-year contract to manage Portugal’s airports.

The Volta ao Algarve cycling tour is to be broadcast throughout Europe and beyond, with 55 countries and 65 million households able to watch the race and to enjoy views of the Algarve.

The 43^rd tour takes place between 15^th and 19^th of February and will be covered by Eurosport.

The Minister of Planning and Infrastructures, Pedro Marques, has a new friend in Olhão, the city's mayor António Miguel Pina (pictured left) who is delighted that the long-awaited by-pass finally is to be built to relieve the city of some of the worst congestion on the EN125.

Pedro Marques said that this work, that has been expected for so long, will become a reality when it opens in 2019, at a cost of €5.6 million.