Bankruptcies and new businesses decline in Portugal
The number of bankruptcies and registrations of new businesses in the European Union increased in the first quarter of the year. In Portugal, the trend was downwards.
Registered bankruptcies in the European Union (EU) rose by 5.8% in the first quarter of this year compared to the previous quarter, according to data released on Tuesday by Eurostat. The registrations of new businesses only rose by 0.3%, at a time still marked by the impact of the covid-19 pandemic in the member states. Portugal is in a counter cycle, registering a decline both in new businesses and in bankruptcies.
Portugal is among the countries with the largest declines in registrations of new businesses in the first quarter of 2021, compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, with a 14.9% reduction. Lithuania (+16.2%), Bulgaria (+12.0%), and Italy (+6.0%) have the largest increases among the countries for which data is available.
Regarding bankruptcies in Portugal, this indicator fell in the first quarter by 8.9%, when comparing it with the last three months of 2020. As for the remaining countries, the largest increases in bankruptcy declarations were observed in Romania (+72.1%), Poland (+16.6%) and Spain (+16.2%).
The increases are more marked if compared with the same period last year, when the impact of the pandemic was still limited. The number of registration of new businesses in the EU rose by 11.8% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to last year, the EU statistics office said.
On the other hand, the number of bankruptcies declared in EU member states, seasonally adjusted, increased by 7.3% in the first quarter of 2021 when compared with the same period last year.
Looking at the Eurozone, the registration of new businesses decreased by 0.1% in the year to March, compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, while bankruptcies grew by 1.8%.
