“The signs of recovery are encouraging. We must keep working”, said the head of Government, at the end of the ceremony to introduce the Crato Multiple Purpose Hydraulic Use Project, in this village in the district of Portalegre.

Asked by journalists about the GDP figures, released by the National Statistics Institute (INE), António Costa insisted that they are “an excellent sign” of the “resilience of the economy, with the set of measures that have been adopted”.

This combination allowed "sustaining employment", he defended, referring to the "numbers that came out yesterday [Thursday]" and that show that the country has an "employment rate similar" to the one it had at the beginning of the pandemic.

The Portuguese Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 4.9 percent in the second quarter compared to the first, and 15.5 percent over the same period last year, released the National Statistics Institute (INE).

“Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in real terms, registered a year-on-year change of 15.5 percent in the 2nd quarter of 2021 (-5.3 percent in the previous quarter)”, can be read in a press release released by the institute of statistics.

According to INE, “this evolution is influenced by a base effect, since the restrictions on economic activity as a result of the pandemic were felt more intensely in the first two months of the second quarter of 2020, leading then to a contraction without precedent of economic activity”.