Sea, Health and Active Aging, Sustainable Agroindustrial, Digital, Renewable Energies and Cultural Industries. These are the areas that the Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commission has chosen as priorities for investing the hundreds of millions of euros that will be available to the region in Portugal 2030, the next package of community funds.
In the next community investment framework, the Algarve «will receive an additional 300 million euros from European Funds, with the aim of contributing to the necessary economic diversification of the Region».
In total, the share of community funds available to the region, in this funding period, will amount to 780 million euros.
This is, «effectively, money to invest in medium/long term projects, which mitigate the main problems of the region and improve the quality of life of the populations, attracting more people to live and work in the Algarve, diversify the economic base of the region, creating more qualifications, more knowledge, more jobs, better health, better mobility. It is the real leverage of the region that we are talking about», assured José Apolinário, president of the Algarve CCDR, within the scope of a workday dedicated to blue growth, maritime economy and cross-border collaboration.
The same official revealed that the Algarve 2030 Program “will allocate around 150 million euros to support companies and productive investments, preferably in line with these choices”.
«Tourism, naturally, will remain the first and most qualified economic activity in the region, but, in this specific area, the focus is on the consolidation of a green agenda, which implies that investments are particularly directed towards the qualification of the territory. and human resources and the reinforcement of sustainability, which will make it possible to conquer new segments of tourists and reduce the seasonality of the sector», reveals the CCDR.
“We are going to dynamize the ecosystem of companies in the sea area. In recreational boating and nautical tourism, in aquaculture (and fisheries), in algae, in the preservation of the blue carbon ecosystem, in ship repair and construction yards. In short, to explore, with sustainability, the potential of the sea and estuarine areas. Let's do it”, explains José Apolinário.
«To add, converge, work in concert and articulate the European Funds managed in the Region, with those of the PRR, those of the next Mar 2030, the Environmental Fund, the Interreg Spain Portugal cross-border cooperation program (POCTEP) and, above all, terms in the other development agents (among others, the University of Algarve, the business community, and investors) true partners», added the president of CCDR Algarve.
For José Apolinário, «Licensing needs to be more agile and it is necessary to better articulate the different entities of the Central Administration that intervene in the set of operations related to the management of community funds. We are counting on the Government to ensure that this solid opportunity to diversify the region's economic base proceeds at a good pace. The country needs a strong and empowered Algarve and the resilience of the Algarve is the biggest proof that they deserve it».
The day dedicated to Blue Growth, within which this anticipation of the Algarve 2030 was made, was an initiative developed within the scope of the ATLAZUL cross-border cooperation project, co-financed by INTERREG VA Spain Portugal (POCTEP).
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