The Vice-President of the Government announced in Horta that "the support to companies in accordance with their capacity to create and promote employment" will be "absolute priority" of the new generation of incentive schemes for the programming period 2014-2020.

"The major challenge the Azores face concerns the capacity of private initiative to create jobs," said Sérgio Ávila. The government official spoke to journalists before the meeting with the Board of the Horta Chamber of Commerce and Industry to analyse new incentives to private initiative provided in the next Community framework.

In this context, Sérgio Ávila stressed that the support to private investment "should not be allocated in accordance with their tangible investment; it should rather boost companies' capacity to create stable jobs."

"This is our commitment and the major principle that will guide the next framework," stressed the Vice-President. According to him, the definition of the new incentive scheme, now under debate with the Chambers of Commerce, also aims "to avoid a gap between the application period and the transition from one framework to another."