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Lusa - Business News - Portugal: State to grant €140M to agricultural producers to mitigate rising costs

Lisbon, March 24,2023 (Lusa) - The Portuguese government will grant this year a support of €140 million to agricultural production, it was announced on Friday at a press conference.
The support will be given, in a direct way, to agricultural producers to face the increase of production costs.
According to the presentation made today at the ministry of finance, in Lisbon, this funding will be to support agricultural producers so that they can cope with the increase in production costs. As a consequence, the executive expects that this support will have an impact on lowering prices that will reach the final consumer.
Questioned about the details of this measure at the press conference, the minister of finance, Fernando Medina, did not give any further information, stating only that "negotiations continue on this matter" with the production sector.
The government will reduce VAT on essential food items, announced the finance minister, putting the rate at zero on the basket of essential goods. For now, the government has not yet decided which goods will be included in the VAT reduction.
To implement this VAT measure, the government is trying to reach an agreement with the food production sector and the food distribution sector.
On Thursday, the chairman of Jerónimo Martins (owner of the Pingo Doce supermarket chain), Pedro Soares dos Santos, called for aid to be given "to production" and not to distribution, with the condition that the products stay in Portugal, stating that last year there was a "very dangerous" shortage of products.
"The shortage meant that we often made the option of having product and not having the capacity to discuss price," he said at the press conference to present Jerónimo Martins' 2022 accounts (€590 million, up 27.5% on 2021).
Soares dos Santos also said that the state "was the one that collected the most, benefited the most from inflation and did the least for the people".
For his part, the director-general of Jerónimo Martins Agro-Food, António Serrano, portrayed the challenges of production in the last year, such as the case of milk.
"We reached the middle of the year and we were faced with the fact that there might not be any milk because costs increased, many producers stopped producing, not only in Portugal, but also in Spain, France and other countries, the reduction of raw materials was evident", he stated.
At the end of 2021 a litre of milk to the producer was 32 cents and at the end of 2022 it was 60 cents.
The ministers of the Presidency, Mariana Vieira da Silva, Finance, Fernando Medina, and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho, presented today in Lisbon, the new package of aid to mitigate the increase in the cost of living.
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Lusa
Agency : LUSA Date : 2023-03-25 12:36:00
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