THE MINISTER of Finance, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, admitted last week that Portugal’s economic growth could be higher than previously expected.
In October, the Finance Minister will officially publish the Portuguese State Budget for 2007 and, according to the minister, “it was too early to release precise predictions about the short-term GNP.”
Underlining the importance of indicating that the revision could be higher than anticipated, Teixeira dos Santos said that it was prudent to wait for the publication of economic activity indices in the coming weeks in order to be able to make more certain predictions.
Normally, the State Budget is presented on, or around, October 15 but as this date falls on a Sunday this year it is possible that the budget will be released on Monday, October 16, instead. During his closing speech, Teixeira dos Santos was equally confident that Portugal’s Public Deficit would represent as little as 4.6 per cent of her GDP before the end of 2006.
On September 8 on an official visit to Helsinki, the Finance Minister said that early growth predictions could be between 1.1 per cent.
Growth in the last quarter grew by 0.9 per cent, which could bring the total growth, with adjustments, to around 1.8 per cent.
