A flash estimate by Statistics Portugal (INE) said this week that Portugal’s gross domestic product (GDP) had increased from 1.5 percent in 2016 to 2.7 percent last year.
The Portuguese statistical agency attributed this exceptional growth to an increase in domestic demand, especially investment, while the contribution of net external demand remained unchanged.
The latest figures follow an extended period in which the economy failed to produce any wealth, with the country’s riches shrinking in all years except one between 2008 and 2013.
The expansion of the economy is also underlined by the fact that it has now grown for the past 15 consecutive quarters.
João Borges de Assunção, a professor at Lisbon’s Catholic University, in comments to Lusa News Agency this week, said the latest numbers represent one of the “healthiest [rates of growth] since Portugal entered the single currency” in 1999.
António da Ascensão Costa, a professor at Lisbon’s Higher Institute of Economy and Management (ISEG), meanwhile told Lusa that it was “probable that with 2017 growth GDP in real terms [excluding inflation effects] has reached the levels of 2010, before the troika, that is before the budget crisis”, to more than €179 billion. He noted that initial forecasts for 2017 were for growth of 1.7 percent, making the final outturn a “good result”.
Ascensão Costa also highlighted faster growth in private consumption, which is seen up 2.5 percent, as well as in investment, “which went from growth of one percent in 2016 to nine or ten percent in 2017”.
The chief economist at mutual Montepio Geral, Rui Serra, meanwhile told the news agency that growth had accelerated thanks above all to investment, “which grew at a good rate last year”, although this entailed more imports of equipment, resulting in a “slight negative contribution to net exports”.