Relatório do Fundo Monetário Internacional de 14 de Julho de 2008, auto-explicativo (ver em FMI), mas merecedor dos seguintes destaques, com sublinhado nosso:
1. Weaker global economic conditions underscore the importance of addressing Portugal's long-standing challenges, building on recent achievements. The deteriorating global economic environment is hampering Portugal's recovery, but the fundamental problems restraining Portugal's economy are home-grown:
wide current account and fiscal deficits;
high household, corporate and government debt;
and, a substantial competitiveness gap.
Portugal has been living beyond its means for many years, borrowing via the banking system from the rest of the world, raising external indebtedness.
But while EMU participation changes the nature of the external constraint, it does not eliminate it: the accumulation of net external liabilities cannot continue indefinitely.
Solving this fundamental problem requires all sectors of the economy to adjust and save more.
Unless productivity is raised, the burden of adjustment will fall on consumption and investment.
Policies need to foster this adjustment, forestalling potentially more disruptive scenarios. The weaker global conditions should thus not be taken as a reason to resort to "quick fixes," but to strengthen efforts to reignite the stalled convergence process: continuing fiscal consolidation and reform; keeping the financial sector sound; and raising the economy's supply capacity and improving its competitiveness.
2. Growth will likely slow in 2008 to about 1¼ percent, and to about 1 percent in 2009.
3. The growth risks to this outlook seem tilted to the downside.
4. Decisive action has reduced fiscal imbalances and enhanced credibility, putting the fiscal accounts on a stronger footing to face the current more difficult economic circumstances.
5. Despite recent impressive gains, Portugal's fiscal position remains weak and the risks significant: merely keeping the deficit below 3 percent of GDP is not enough.
Public debt remains above 60 percent of GDP.
The Medium-Term Objective (MTO) of a structural deficit of ½ a percent of GDP remains a long way off (and may need to be improved upon to address longer-term pressures such as population aging), Portugal's external imbalances continue, and there are considerable risks. The recent revenue buoyancy, especially of corporate income tax, may not be sustained, and the benefits of the public administration reform still need to be fully realized. Fiscal policy should thus remain anchored to a credible path for achieving the MTO, although automatic stabilizers could be allowed to operate around this.
6. Fiscal consolidation is set to continue in 2008, though at a slower pace.
Following substantial overperformance in 2007, the government appropriately tightened the deficit target to 2.2 percent of GDP.
However, the cut in the VAT rate by a percentage point and some specific measures to support those most affected by higher commodity prices and interest rates, will reduce the structural consolidation to somewhat below ½ a percent of GDP.
7. Fiscal consolidation needs to continue in 2009, and there is no scope for any further discretionary loosening.
To ensure the credibility of achieving the MTO, even by 2011, and to avoid jeopardizing the gains achieved so far, structural consolidation should be at least a ½ percent of GDP. Indeed, as the heightened spreads on Portugal's government debt indicate, there is little room for maneuver and the costs of slippage are high. Such an adjustment in 2009 should (just) be achievable on the basis of current policies, but there are risks. Particular care should be taken to keep public wage growth under control, not only to foster competitiveness and consolidation, but also to prevent "second-round" effects feeding into inflation. Any further measures to mitigate recent commodity price and interest rate increases should be targeted, temporary, offset by other measures, and designed to maximize the supply response, avoiding distorting price signals.
8. Efforts to enhance the quality, transparency, and durability of fiscal consolidation need to continue.
In particular, progress should continue to be made on performance-based budgeting and a binding medium-term framework.
Continued progress needs also to be made on divesting and reforming public enterprises, including greater use of performance evaluation, centralizing the ownership function in the Ministry of Finance, and enhancing transparency in public accounts.
Especially in the current economic context, the program to make public agencies pay on time needs to be strictly enforced and possibly made more ambitious.
9. The financial system remains sound and well supervised.
Portuguese banks' reliance on wholesale funding raises liquidity risks and banks are exposed to market risk through employees' pension funds and banks' own investment portfolios.
High household and corporate debt increases credit risk given rising interest rates and the weak macroeconomic outlook, and loan concentration in some banks to certain sectors and large exposures appears significant.
As funding from longer-term securities declined, banks switched to deposits to sustain strong credit growth, though both deposit and credit growth rates will likely slow in coming months.
10. The Bank of Portugal is well aware of these vulnerabilities, which are not new, and has been proactive in addressing them.
11. These measures are welcome, and some further enhancements to the financial stability framework could be considered.
12. Given Portugal's external imbalances, household savings need to rise over time.
Recent reforms of the social security system and the benefits of enhancing banks' domestic retail funding also call for more proactive promotion of household savings. A key channel for such savings are occupational pension schemes, but these are relatively undeveloped—consideration should be given to conducting a public financial literacy campaign and to introducing "soft compulsion" schemes that require opting out of, rather than into, occupational pension schemes.
13. At the root of Portugal's economic problems lies anemic productivity growth.
This in turn reflects a rigid economy, as well as other structural factors relating to human capital and the judicial system. The duality of the labor market has increased, and, unlike for other EU countries, so has unemployment (especially long-term). While unit labor costs are now growing in line with the euro area, the competitiveness gap, at some 10-20 percent, remains substantial. Important steps are being taken to address these challenges. These need to be followed through and assessed, and further reform should focus on making the economy more flexible and competitive.
14. The recent agreement on reforming labor relations is a welcome step forward.
15. The ambitious and broad-ranging SIMPLEX program continues to improve the business climate and its priority on licensing in 2008 is well placed.
It will be important to:
broaden the participation of local governments, building on recent efforts;
ensure that small and medium-sized businesses are included in the benefits;
and, to follow through with plans to assess effectiveness. In this context, advantage should be taken of the need to implement the EU Services Directive to make a clean sweep of regulations at all levels of government.
The recent public administration reforms should also be built upon to continue to enhance public sector productivity.
16. Competition in domestic markets needs to be further enhanced.
The Competition Authority should build on its encouraging first five years to continue to advocate and enforce competition.
Enhancing judicial system efficiency would support the Authority's effectiveness, and consideration could also be given to permitting courts the option of increasing penalties in the event of appeals and allowing the Authority jurisdiction to issue binding decisions on government procurement actions.
For electricity, integration with the Spanish market is continuing, but it will be important that regulated tariffs are set to ensure full cost recovery, that the roadmap for the end of regulated prices be developed, and that opportunities be grasped to increase competition in domestic generation.
17. The reform momentum needs to be maintained.
Policies should avoid jeopardizing recent achievements and long-term goals for short-term gain, preserving the continuity of adjustment and reforms and avoiding policy drift that Portugal can ill-afford.
In this context, consideration could be given to developing mechanisms to formulate a "catch-up" growth agenda, which could broaden social support and could be rapidly acted upon by the next legislature.
