The President of the Government stated in Ribeira Grande, the importance of joint efforts between private and public entities to ensure the sustainable growth of the tourism sector in the Azores, restating the Government's commitment to create conditions for the accomplishment of this goal.

Vasco Cordeiro stressed that the set of economic indicators that was recently released, which point out to a "resumption of confidence and hope," show that "each of the parties, either public or private, cannot achieve this kind of results on their own."

"Our incentive schemes and the policies we have developed for the tourism sector cannot achieve these results by themselves. In fact, there are private entities that establish partnerships with public and private entities on a daily basis, which lead to these results, said the President of the Government.

"I welcome this spirit of partnership to relaunch an important sector for our economy that has still much to give in terms of job creation and wealth generation in our Region", said Vasco Cordeiro, who spoke at the opening of Santa Bárbara Eco-Beach Resort.

For the President of the Government, the opening of this tourist resort, which represented an investment of 1.8 million Euros, is the result of the entrepreneurial spirit of its promoters and "clearly symbolises a new phase in our Region."

In his speech, Vasco Cordeiro stressed that the Government of the Azores has been developing measures and actions to promote the development of tourism, such as the creation of the new incentive scheme COMPETIR+, which will be fully operational by the end of July in all its components, and a new model of air accessibility to the Region. In this context, the government official warned that the tools available to the private sector "require hard work so that they can be properly leveraged and monetised for job creation and wealth generation."

"The worst thing that can happen to the tourism sector in our region is to believe that everything has been done." This is not true. These new tools at our disposal require us from increased efforts as well as increased capacity for innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship so that they can be properly used and the result in the creation of wealth and employment," said Vasco Cordeiro. In this regard, the President Government ensured the commitment of the Government to continue creating the conditions that could be used by the private sector to promote development.

"We believe that the path we are following leads to results and investments, such as this one that turned out are a very strong sign of confidence in this path we are following," said Vasco Cordeiro. According to him, "if we all do our part by putting our commitment to improving the aspects that still need to be improved, this challenge will be won for the benefit of the entire Region.”