Public investment for the year of 2008 in the Azores reached 390.7 million Euros, 28.6 million Euros more than in the previous year.

According to the Vice-President of the Regional Government, this amount “reflects the greatest public investment effort ever made in the Azores.

Governmental expenditure in public investment, directly financed by the Regional Budget, increased 8% in the past year. This, the Vice-President said, “enabled the consolidation of sustainable and continued growth in the execution of public investments announced in the Budget of the Region.

The Vice-President also said that in the past two years public investment increased 143.2 million Euros in relation to last year and that this reflects “ a significant increase of 23.5%  when compared to the past two years.

Of the total amount allotted to public investments, Sérgio Ávila underlined the implementation of investment projects in structural areas that are vital to the development of the Region, such as the construction, consolidation and requalification of public roads (42.2 million), incentives granted to promote private investment and social cohesion in the Region (38.6 million), agricultural grants to modernise and diversify product offer (37.4 million) as well as funds applied in the development of the  educational system and its infra-structures (34.6 million).

The consolidation and modernisation of the maritime transport system, of the housing sector, of infrastructures and fisheries were other priority sectors in the allocation of public investment funds in 2008, in accordance with the Investment Plan.

For the Vice-President of the Regional Government, the results obtained are due to “the continued successful implementation of stability policies and to a balanced budget which, in turn, result from rigorous budgetary management and the application of all available resources in the promotion of private investment.”

Data regarding these matters shoes that the application of the 2008 budget funds “conformed entirely to the objectives that had been outlined for the regional public finances, namely with regard to the significant increase of Public Investment by the Regional Government.”

Sérgio Ávila said that the application of the Regional Finances Law, the sustainable growth of internally generated regional revenues and the increase in the implementation ration of EU assistance funds are other reasons for the increased implementation capacities of the Investment Plan of 2008.

He underlined that the implementation ratio of the 2008 budget demonstrates the “rigour and credibility of the Budget and Investment Plan of this Government and that it reinforces the consolidation of public finances, thus contributing to an atmosphere of security, stability and thrust among Azorean companies and families.”

He added that in 2009 the sustainable growth of public investment will continue, with a predicted increase in the order of 10%, a figure that, in the view of the Vice-President, will be an “added stimulus to the regional productive structure that will enable it to face the adverse international conjuncture and will be a reinforcement of the incentives for the stabilisation of the Azorean economy.”

He said that “the good financial standing of the Azores, budgetary stability and a balanced regional budget are aims that have been pursued and attained, thus making public investment an “incentive to the promotion of private investment whose impact at the level of production and incomes of Azoreans is ever more significant.”