Catarina Martins: “The four-year period in which Portugal grew the most since joining the Euro was between 2015 and 2019”. Is it confirmed?
“The quadrennium in which Portugal most since an entry without euro was between 2015 and 2019, also when more reduced your debt. And, therefore, what is proven and what we have already proved is that contrary to what the right defends, which is by destroying the country that the country will be better, it is with more salary that the country can grow“stressed katherine martins, coordinator of BE, in last night’s debate on SIC in which she faced Rui river, president of the PSD.
Were economic growth and public debt reduction so strong between 2015 and 2019?
without regard to real growth rate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in fact, the period between 2015 and 2019 (or more correctly, between 2016 and 2019, forming the quadrennium of the first PS Government based on the “gimmick” that took office at the end of 2015) highlights if with the most positive variations since 2002, when Portugal joined the single European currency.
A saber: + 2.02% in 2016, + 3.51% in 2017, + 2.85% in 2018 and + 2.68% in 2019.
Between 2002 and 2015, in addition to variations negative of the real GDP growth rate in five years, the biggest increase was registered in 2017 with +2.51%. It was only once, over all these years, that the +2% threshold was surpassed. In the 2016-2019 quadrennium, the growth rate was always above +2% and it even peaked at +3.51% in 2017, a level that had not been reached since the year 2000 (no end of the 1990s ever surpassed the +4%) threshold.
As for the gross debt of general government as a percentage of GDP, in 2002 it was at the level of 60% of GDP and, since then, it has been increase almost uninterruptedly, with just three exceptions: slight decreases between 2006 and 2007 and between 2014 and 2015; and a sharper decline between 2016 and 2019.
In 2015 it reached 131.2% of GDP, the following year still increased to slightly 131.5%, but then start a downward trajectory to the level of 116.6% of GDP in 2019.
That is, Martins is right, both in terms of economic growth and in terms of reducing public debt. However, it is important to bear in mind that the year 2020 was very negative forms two indicators, already in the extraordinary context of the Covid-19 pandemic. But the leader of the Blocistas referred specifically to the 2016/2017/2018/2019 quadrennium.
This article from fact check it is based on data compiled by Pordata (sourced from Banco de Portugal, National Institute of Statistics and other official sources).
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