Portugal’s Foreign Minister, Augusto Santos Silva, has announced that the Portuguese government has approved 850 Golden Visa in just over a month.
Admitting that there have been severe delays for those waiting for their visas, the minister said that the situation has been difficult but that the backlog is being tackled.
Italy has been catapulted into the number one position as the world’s largest exporter and producer of wine in 2015, overtaking both France and Spain.
"Today, one bottle of wine exported in five is made in Italy, the biggest wine exporter in the world," Italy's Coldiretti agricultural association said in a statement.
In a statement that many imagines was unnecessary, the Bank of Portugal, The Stock Market and Securities Commission (CMVM) and the Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Authority have proposed measures to tackle the problem of the mis-selling of financial products.
The Bank of Portugal and CMVM have had several public disagreements, most notably over the mis-selling of shares in Grupo Espírito Santo subsidiaries in BES branches just before the bank went bust, but have managed to agree that the sale of financial products without complying with best practice is not a good thing.
The volume of retail trade in the eurozone was up by 0.4% in January this year compared to December 2015 and by a more reassuring 2% when compared to a year earlier.
Portugal was the country with the highest monthly increase (6%) but this comes on the back of two consecutive months of decreasing sales. The punchy figure for January may well be related to pent-up demand coinciding with sales and promotions after Christmas.
EDP's 12% fall in profits to €913 million would have been worse but for a strong performance from EDP in Brazil and from EDP Renováveis based in Madrid.
Total pre-tax earnings were up 8% across EDP’s countries of operation but the profit decline was far worse than expected by analysts mainly due to a sharp drop in earnings in EDP’s home market of Portugal.
Conforama is taking over the old Moviflor showroom in Olhão this June as part of its aim to have ten stores in Portugal by 2017, according to the furniture and decoration company.
Conforama has an Algarve store in Albufeira and will hire 130 more workers for two new stores in Corroios and Olhão as it sees its market developing despite the forthcoming opening of Ikea near Loulé in 2017.
The government has reintroduced the ‘name and shame’ policy for those owing money to Portugal’s Social Security department.
The online list was suspended in 2013 but will again become public in an effort to embarrass people into paying up. Those unable to pay will have their names listed for everyone to see.
The leader of the Spanish Socialist party, Pedro Sanchez, has failed to form a new government.
Although it was the worst result in their history, the Socialists came second in the 20 December election. That general election was nevertheless inconclusive as no one party gained sufficient votes to govern alone. Since then, jockeying around by the four main parties has not resulted in a coalition agreement.
