Record investment pushes portuguese economy forward
Portuguese economy grows fuelled by private investment in the first quarter of the year, INE reports.
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) has confirmed, this Friday, its first projection for the Portuguese economic growth relative to the first trimester of the year. The GDP is said to have grown 0.5% at the beginning of the year, only 0.1% above the growth rate registered over the last three months of 2018. When comparing the first three months of 2019 with the same period of 2018, a progression of 1.8% has been recorded, benefiting almost exclusively of a historically high growth rate.
According to the same statistics published by INE, the growth rate of 17.8% is the highest ever recorded. The economic growth is greatly due to the acceleration of investment. With a decisive contribution, the construction sector has given an important boost to growth rate, jumping from 2.8% to 12.4%, the highest since 1997.
Given that household consumption has slowed down, the positive evolution of investment will mainly be due to the growth of private investments. The government and major international organisations have reduced their growth projections for 2019. Trade frictions between the US and China and their effects are one of the main reasons for less optimism.
According to the government, “the impact of investment and exports on GDP reached 68% for the first time”, adding that it is “the most sustainable growth of the Portuguese economy since 1995”. The Office of the Minister of Finance said these statistics “show existing confidence in the evolution of the economy”, coinciding with both the Bank of Portugal and INE’s confidence indicators.