It’s more good news for Portugal’s Socialist government: the Financial Times has released a story suggesting foreign investors are now optimistic about Portuguese debt.
Quoting a portfolio manager called Fanny Jacquemont, the financial paper has done what no PR company could do any better.
The FT has blown away “concerns” that a left-wing administration backed by anti-EU parties like the communists and Left Bloc would spell financial mismanagement, stressing that prime minister António Costa has shown “a commitment to fiscal targets agreed with international lenders, while economic indicators suggest that the outlook has become rosier since the start of 2017”.
Fanny Jacquemont, working for French investor CPR Asset Manager, told the paper: “The main risks are behind us”. Portugal’s “macroeconomic dynamic is improving, the government is very keen to reduce the deficit, the banking system is being sorted”.
With no concerns raised over the increases in public debt (click here), the FT concentrated on investor reaction to the fact that “Portugal’s budget deficit is running at a 40-year low, the economy has been growing for 13 straight quarters and in March unemployment fell below double digits for the first time since 2009”.
The paper does allow itself a bit of introspection however, concluding: “For those who think that Portugal’s outlook is improving, big questions remain over the banking sector against the backdrop of broader political risk for the eurozone and the slowing of the European Central Bank’s bond-buying via quantitative easing”.
