In its latest report on ‘Public Finances: Situation and Constraints’, the Council of Public Finances (CFP) raised its projection for 2017 GDP growth by a full percentage point from the 1.7% it had published in March. It cited a “strong acceleration" in investment and exports together with "the rapid drop in unemployment and the recovery in economic confidence ".

The CPF, which is headed by Teodora Cardoso, an economist and former director of the Bank of Portugal, also cut its forecast for the budget deficit by 0.3 of a point, from the 1.7% it was projecting in March.

The new figure of 1.4% takes account of the recovery of state guarantees to failed institution Banco Privado Português (BPP) – estimates by the CFP at some 0.2% of GDP – after the government included €450 million in revenue from this source in this year’s state budget. Without this revenue, the CFP says, the public sector budget deficit would be 1.6%

The CFP also projects state indebtedness as a share of GDP to decline to 112.9% in 2021, from 130.1% at the end of last year.

All these projections are more optimistic than those of the government, which in its Stability Programme for 2017 to 2021, submitted to the European Commission, foresaw a budget deficit this year of 1.5% of GDP and economic growth of 1.8. In the meantime, the finance minister, Mário Centeno, has suggested that GDP could grow 2%.