Hopes inflation will come down to 3% “for several months”; public debt to fall below Spain, France
Portugal’s finance minister Fernando Medina has delivered some good economic news to the country while in the wider sphere focus remains on the ‘political crisis’ and ‘chaos in government’.
At a point when the executive could not be more keen to ‘turn the page on current news coverage’, Mr Medina delivered the goods during the opening session today of the annual conference of the CMVM (Markets Securities Commission) at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.
“Inflation will slow down over 2023, with European Commission and IMF projections now close to those made by the government”, he said. “”This means that throughout this year, particularly in the second half, we will see several months of inflation below 3%”. This will be an “important evolution in terms of the stabilisation of future expectations of families, companies and the remaining economic agents”, he said.
Portugal’s debt “lower than that of Spain and France, practically level with Belgium”
As for public debt, which has hung like the sword of Damocles over the country for well over a decade, Medina explains this has come down in terms of its ratio to GDP. In his perspective, Portugal will end the year with a debt burden “lower than Spain, France and practically at the level of Belgium. This will make it possible to “save money on interest,” gain the “confidence of investors,” and provide greater “security” to the country and taxpayers, he said.
Blockchain experimental regime to be approved soon
Fernando Medina also “guaranteed that the government will continue to work to promote measures to reduce the cost of access to the capital market”, explain reports, reinforcing the goal of “making the Portuguese capital market more attractive for all types of investments, including individuals, creating more incentives for medium-term savings.”
He indicated “the forthcoming approval of the national regime for implementation of the European regulation that establishes the experimental regime for operation of the technology of distributed registration, better known as ‘blockchain'”.
Medina argued that the capital market, like the Portuguese economy, cannot be looked at in isolation, as it is part of the European context, which he considers has not yet reached its full potential.
The minister used the occasion to stress that “very soon” an assessment will be made, “of the way in which the implementation of the incentive regime for capitalisation of companies and the simplification of the tax loss carry forward regime are taking place.
In all, it was a presentation that ‘looked forward’ to the promise of positivity at a time when ‘all around’ opposition parties are baying for more immediate explanations of events in the recent past.
