The PS Parliamentary Group asked the Government for more details on the measures for the recovery of the tourism sector, included in the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), and asked that the Serra do Caldeirão recovery be included in this strategy, which will be financed with the “bazooka” of the European Union.
These issues were raised by Jamila Madeira, socialist deputy elected by the Algarve, during the regimental hearing of Nelson de Souza, Minister of Planning, within the scope of the Committee on Economy, Innovation, Public Works and Housing, which took place on Wednesday.
For the Algarve deputy, the tourism sector, which is worth "17%" of GDP, "has been the most affected in Portugal and in the world by the pandemic crisis and also the one that will take the longest to recover".
The importance of the sector “is such that it requires more detailed answers regarding the sector's leverage strategy under the PRR”.
In this plan, recalled Jamila Madeira, “an endowment of about 4,6 million euros is inscribed. However, as it is a critical response for Portugal and the Portuguese economy, but, above all, decisive for the Algarve, which is the largest tourist region in the country and whose economy is based on a monoculture tourism logic, it is important to know more detail, the RRP proposals for the sector».
In response, Minister Nelson de Souza guaranteed that the sector's recovery «is fully within the PRR's structural strategy, which is an essential instrument for the reindustrialization of the sector, which, despite not being a manufacturing industry, should be understood as more comprehensive form'.
For the government official, this response is parallel to those that will be given, for example, to "creative industries and cultural industries", also already registered in the headquarters of the PRR, having added that from the proposal of the socialist deputy, the Government will "add an evidence also in relation to tourism”, in order to correspond to its “strategic importance”.
Another issue raised by the Algarve parliamentarian were the projects foreseen in the PPR to improve water efficiency in the Algarve, a “very important investment, as it allows to ensure the water cycle and the access of populations and economic activities to this essential good for life”.
Even so, Jamila Madeira was concerned with the fact that the Caldeirão mountain range was not included in the PRR.
"It is very important that it is, as it is a very important heritage, forest and environmental value, both for the resilience to forest fires and for the water cycle in the region", he argued
Minister Nelson de Souza admitted "making perfect sense" of this remark, considering that it is "an area that, in addition to climate change, constitutes a fundamental axis of the ecological transition and not just the climate transition."
According to the PS Parliamentary Group, the member of the Government promised "the inclusion of measures, in the PRR, that contribute to the recovery of Serra do Caldeirão".
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