Costa says Portugal may converge with the European Union this year – News
“We converged with the European Union in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 and everything points to us returning to the path of convergence as early as 2022, if not even in this year of 2021”, he said.
The head of Government spoke today at the opening of the 9th National Congress of Economists, taking place at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon.
The prime minister considers that, when the social and economic crisis arising from the covid-19 pandemic began, Portugal was “in a better starting position” in view of the 2008 crisis, exemplifying that the country registered “between 2015 and 2019 a GDP growth of 11.5% in volume “and exports today” the largest weight of GDP in history, 43.5% “.
Currently, the country has resumed “economic growth, the unemployment rate is below the level it was before the crisis, as exports are growing again”, there is a “new peak in business investment in the first half of the year this year and AICEP will close this year with a new record of contracted investment”.
“The recent good performance gives us confidence for this recovery, shows that we are not doomed to diverge and wither away. It shows that it is possible to mobilize society and the Portuguese economy for a process of recovery that is not limited to making us return where we want to go, but that allows us to resume a cycle of convergence and improvement in the standard of living of the Portuguese men and women who it is surely what we all want”, emphasized António Costa.