Economy minister says recession scenario ‘not up for discussion’

Economy and Maritime Minister António Costa Silva said this Wednesday that a recession scenario is “not up for discussion”, stressing, however, that Portugal is not immune to what is happening in the European economy.

“I think that this scenario is not being considered,” the minister said, answering journalists’ question whether a recession in the national economy is possible after the registration of stagnation in the second quarter.

António Costa Silva, who spoke on the sidelines of the presentation session of the Digital Commercial Neighborhoods in Porto, stressed, however, that the country does not ignore what is happening in the European space, primarily in the German economy.

“Germany managed to avoid a recession, it had two months of negative growth in a row, but the last one was zero, it avoided a recession from a technical point of view, but it is clear that the German economy is in an anemic situation, it drags the entire economy with it. Europe, and this is a concern, because we are not immune from everything that happens in Europe,” he added.

As for the national economy, the minister says there are “some signs that are positive” but there are also worrisome ones.

“We had 2.3% year-on-year growth in Q2 and compared to Q2 2022, 2022 was a great year. The network growth was 0%, there was no network growth, and in this sense it is obviously a concern, but I believe that the Portuguese economy, thanks to its resilience, will be able to meet the challenges that we have set for ourselves,” he said.

Answering a question about the increase in the number of fixed-term contracts in Portugal, António Costa Silva stressed that worldwide the labor market is “working very positively”.

“We have never had a workforce of this order, 4.9 million people, there have been fluctuations and, therefore, sometimes employment grows, sometimes unemployment rises. At the moment I think these are not structural problems, I think the economy should be able to create and absorb more jobs,” he said, saying the government is working to reduce the number of precarious workers.

Asked about more than 32 million euros owed by Jeronimo Martins to the state for food security tax, the minister said the government was monitoring the situation but declined to comment on whether other economic groups were in debt. or whether the government was considering changing the current regime.

“I can’t announce anything, we are thinking about measures that can facilitate the overall functioning of the sector, and that is exactly what will happen,” he said.