The Vice-President of the Government stated at the Legislative Assembly on Thursday that the disposable income increased 7.8% in 2010, reaching 100% of the national average.

According to Sérgio Ávila, the latest data on the production and economic activity levels also confirm that the Azores are converging with Europe, which contradicts the statements made two months ago by the opposition leader, who placed the Azores at only “60 percent” of the EU average.

That is untrue, the Vice-President of the Government stated, adding that the Azores had already registered a production and economic activity levels corresponding to 71 percent of the EU average in 2007 and in the last two years these figures have grown 6 percent, rising to 77 percent.

Sérgio Ávila also stressed the fact that the Azores have registered an economic growth five times higher (2.8 vs. 0.5) the EU average in 2008.
According to the Vice-President, in 2009 “the year when the effects of the regional crisis were more intense,” the Azores, despite the circumstances, were the only region in the country where the GDP grew in nominal terms. 

In the same year, the Azores registered a negative real growth of 0.3 percent, which demonstrates that we have practically maintained the same level of economic activity, while the European Union decreased 4.2 percent. 

For Sérgio Ávila, “facts are facts” and the fact is that the Azores have managed, on the one hand, “to delay the effects of the international crisis” in the archipelago and, on the other hand, to “minimise its impact in the Region, which was considerably lower than the rest of Europe as well as of the country.”

The Vice-President also considered that the mitigation of the effects of the crisis in the archipelago is “due to the merit of the specific measures taken by the Azorean Government to tackle this international conjuncture.”