Alarm bells are ringing once again over the (real) state of Portuguese economy. Reporting today, business news website Negócios quotes data from INE, the statistics institute, which it says “registers a need for finance of the Portuguese economy to the value of €546 million – the equivalent of 1.4% of GDP”.
This new value – for the first three months of the year – is the first negative balance for the last nine months, says Negócios online, adding that “correction of the Portuguese external debt was one of the principal objectives of the troika’s adjustment programme”.
The current imbalance therefore is a “problem central to the national economy”, says the website.
Ironically, the news comes on the day after Germany’s foreign minister Wolfgang Schäuble proclaimed Portugal is one of Europe’s “success stories”.
Just as confusing comes Negócios’ cheery last line: “For the future, the troika and the government are expecting consecutive external positives which approach, and which by 2018 will surpass, 2% of GDP”.
