PM sees ‘good prospects’ for economy in 2023 as inflation slows

Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa said on Wednesday that there are indications of good prospects for the country’s economy in 2023 and that the coming months are far from being set to be a “nightmare” given a slowdown in inflation.

These expectations about the prospects for Portugal’s economy in the next year were expressed at the end of another session of the Recovery and Resilience Plan in Motion, this one dedicated to the programme to digitalise the Social Security system.

After noting that last year Portugal’s economy had the second fastest growth in the European Union and that unemployment “at historic lows, the prime minister concluded by saying that the economy “managed to resist” last year, despite inflationary pressure.

“There are good indicators for 2023,” he said. “It won’t be our dream year, but it won’t be a nightmare year.

“We will be able to live with confidence,” he declared. “Fortunately, the signs are good.”

Still on the outlook for next year, Costa made reference to the external environment, saying that “Europe helps” in underpinning the prospects for growth.

“Yesterday [Tuesday] Germany announced that it will not be in recession this year,” he recalled. “And not having a recession in Germany means that we will all be considerably better off.”

According to the prime minister, “with the current trajectory of slowing inflation, economic expectations can be good” for Portugal.

“That is fundamental, because one of the successes in Social Security, in the ability to respond to families and businesses, has been the high levels of employment and the improvement in incomes that has allowed for sustained growth in Social Security revenues,” he noted.