Portugal in worst economic crisis for 150 years
Portugal is going through its fifth worse economic crisis in 150 years according to a report in the weekend paper Expresso.
The economy has not seen a fall of around 8% since the crisis of 1928 when Salazar (pictured) was the Portuguese finance minister.
Nevertheless, Portugal’s economy has sunk less than had been expected by analysts and the actual government last year who predicted GDP could fall by as much as 11%
But, it is the worst economic crisis in the 46-year history of Portuguese democracy, which began in April 1974 after a bloodless military coup after years of colonial wars emotionally, politically and economically bankrupted the country. It was followed by a recession in 1975 with a GDP contraction of -4.3%.
Yet in just 12 months, the Coronavirus crisis has become worse than the economic crisis Portugal went through during the Great Recession and Sovereign Debt Crisis which had its greatest impact on the Portuguese economy between 2011 and 2013, during the troika programme.
And in terms of deaths, only the Spanish flu from 1918-1921 caused more fatalities, with a total of 59,000 Portuguese according to statistics.
At the end of World War I, in which Portugal was a combatant, the economy contracted 6.5%.