Portuguese construction sector calls for Government help
Wednesday 31st of August 2011
Cancelled public infrastructure projects and a decline in sales of Property In Portugal are causing significant problems to the construction sector in the country, with leading firms calling on the government for help.
Unemployment in the construction industry is rising amid further concerns about the state of Portugal’s property market.
Government cuts and fall in sales of Property In Portugal hitting construction sector hard
As part of the conditions of its recent €78 billion bailout, the Portuguese government has cancelled several large projects including motorway improvements, a new airport in the capital Lisbon and a high speed rail link to Spain.
In a recent statement, the Portuguese Federation of Construction and Public Works Industry (FEPICOPS) said that “the sector is going through a deep crisis, with significant drops in production and the number of firms and jobs it sustains.”
The organisation also blamed the credit crunch which has prevented many thousands of residents and foreign buyers from buying Property In Portugal.
FEPICOPS said that unemployment in the building sector has increased by around 14 per cent to nearly 71,000 in the last year, accounting for 15 per cent of all jobless workers in Portugal.
According to the country’s National Statistics Institute, construction orders in Portugal fell by 17 per cent between the second quarters of 2010 and 2011 while licences for new homes fell by almost a third in June 2011.
Another construction sector association, AECOPS, warned that ‘uncertainty about the future is driving builders out of business.’
Reuters reports that ‘while hundreds of incomplete high-rise apartment blocks in the suburbs of Lisbon and Porto illustrate the extent of the crisis, the construction firms say recovering those cities' long-decaying centres offer a growth opportunity, so long as rental rules are made more flexible.’
