Fundão attracting overseas investment

The Portuguese town of Fundão in the latest city outside Lisbon, Porto and Faro to attract Direct Foreign Investment.
When it comes to overseas residents living and working in Portuguese cities, Lisbon still tops the list with 213,065, followed by Faro (77,489), Setúbal (40,206), Porto (32,614), Leiria (17,389), Braga (14,090), Aveiro (13,448), Coimbra (12,673), Santarém (11,606), Beja (9,731), Madeira (7,578), Viseu (4,339), Castelo Branco (4,318), Évora (4,224), Viana do Castelo (3,706), Azores (3,605), Braganza (3,273) and Portalegre (2,449).
And Portugal is the second member of the OEDC where immigration has most grown and at a rate above the average for developed countries.
In 2018 there were 480,300 foreign citizens with a valid Authorisation for Residency, a 13,9% increase on 2017 and the highest number ever recorded by the Portuguese immigration authorities (SEF).
The Castelo Branco district located in the centre of Portugal is a good example of the power to attract overseas citizens: in 2018 there were 4,318 foreigners according to SEF, an increase of 6.9% in relation to the previous year.
“We suffer from low population density and in fact the influx of overseas citizens is absolutely vital for our demographic sustainability which until of late has not existed”, says Paulo Fernandes, President of Fundão Municipal Council which is a main town in the district in an interview with online news source ECO.
The town is fast becoming the new epicentre of technological development for the district which is famous for cherry tree orchards. In recent years it has invested in supporting immigrants who want to settle in the interior district which has only 13,000 inhabitants but 699 immigrants from 57 nationalities.
Paulo Fernandes says that the district is seeing a very interesting phase in its difficult internationalisation, starting seven years ago with agro-industrial investors from all over the world such as the Middle East, Israel, Switzerland, France and Brazil, the last case of which has involved Brazilian funds and investors interested in the area.