Is Portugal going into a recession? The prime minister, António Costa, has reassured the Portuguese people that "it is not foreseen in the macroeconomic scenario" of Portugal "any recession next year", stressing that the country "will continue to grow". So, as there is no recession expected in Portugal in 2023, how is Portugal doing economically? We have the details.
Portugal's head of government was responding to Rui Tavares, the only member of parliament from Livre who participated in the recent debate in parliament on general policy. The MP asked António Costa if he could guarantee that, in the event of a recession in 2023, the Government would "change its target for the weight of wages in GDP, revising it upwards and increasing the weight of wages".
In his response, Costa said that "Portugal will continue to grow". He added that, "on the contrary, the scenario we clearly see is that Portugal will continue to grow, obviously at a lower rate than the rate of this year 2022, and that we will continue to converge with the European Union and we hope that this convergence is also done with the convergence of wages, and more, that the growth of wages continues to support the growth of the Portuguese economy, as has been the case since November 2015," he stressed.
The Prime Minister said that "since 2015 to date nominal GDP has grown by 20%" and that this "has been the country's sustained growth trajectory. Unfortunately, the growth is not linear and by 2020 and 2021 we already exceeded the 48% weight of wages in GDP, not because wages have grown, but because GDP has sunk. And so that is not the path, the path is the growth of the share of wages in GDP in a scenario of convergence with the European Union," he added.
Costa said that this scenario was presented "in all seriousness" in the electoral programme and was maintained in the Government's programme but, he stressed, "obviously it has to be adjusted to reality".
Tavares also questioned the Prime Minister about the possibility of the port of Sines "being a revolving door for Russian liquefied gas" but Costa only replied that Portugal "has applied the EU sanctions framework", in the context of the war in Ukraine.
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