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FINANCIAL TIMES Immigrants and residents see nation as
haven from populism and division Peter Wise Eduardo Migliorelli decided to move his family to
Portugal the evening he discovered he could walk the few hundred metres
from a restaurant to his hotel without fear of being attacked. “I wouldn’t dream of doing it back home,” said the
Brazilian businessman, who was robbed and assaulted several times while
living in São Paulo. “In Lisbon, you don’t have to keep looking over
your shoulder.” Portugal’s crime rate, the lowest in the EU, has
been an important factor in attracting tens of thousands of recent
immigrants from Brazil, which has one of the highest murder rates in the
world, observers say. They are joining a growing number of investors
drawn to Portugal from across the world by what they see as an open
attitude towards foreigners and a society viewed as largely free of
divisions driven by populism, nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment. In an era of increasingly discordant politics, the
country’s perceived social peace is seen as a competitive advantage on a
par with its business environment, skilled workforce and attractive
quality of life, say analysts. According to Florbela Lima, a partner at
accountancy firm EY Portugal, “political stability and social peace” are
among the most important criteria for investors at a time of uncertainty
caused by US-China trade tensions and Brexit. In the company’s recent
attractiveness survey on Portugal, she said “the main decision-making
factors for investment were quality of life and stability of the social
climate”. While Portugal fell one place to 34th position in
the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report for 2018, it
moved up two places in the Global Peace Index 2019 to rank as the third
most peaceful country in the world after Iceland and New Zealand. With a low birth rate and declining population,
Portugal needs immigrants if it is to sustain a growth rate above the
eurozone average, as it has for the past two years. António Costa, prime minister, has said immigration
is essential to combat the country’s demographic crisis, calling in a
recent speech for Europe to “mobilise against populism and xenophobia”. To attract potential foreign investors, Portugal
runs a residence scheme that offers tax breaks to skilled professionals,
while non-EU citizens who spend more than €500,000 on a property or
create sufficient jobs can apply for a “golden visa” — a controversial
system the EU has urged governments to tighten up. Last year — the third straight year of strong
growth — the number of foreign residents registered in Portugal
increased by more than 93,000 to a record of almost half a million.
Meanwhile, greenfield foreign direct investment projects were valued at
close to £3bn in 2018, the highest level in almost a decade. Between
2015 and 2018, the annual number of such projects rose 161 per cent, by
far the fastest growth rate in western Europe. “Portugal is the most open, tolerant and liberal
society I have ever lived in,” said Chitra Stern, a Singaporean of
Indian descent who moved to the Algarve in the south of the country in
2001 to look for business opportunities. Ms Stern, a British citizen, and her Swiss husband
have since built a chain of family hotels and resorts in Lisbon and the
Algarve. “People need to feel welcome, especially in today’s world, and
the Portuguese welcome people of different religions, beliefs and
colours with open arms,” she said. Itay Kastel, an Israeli, moved with his family to
Portugal in 2016 to expand the property business he had been running for
10 years in Angola. “We’re really happy with our decision. The
atmosphere here is embracing and helpful,” he said. He has applied for a Portuguese passport under a
2015 law that allows descendants of Sephardic Jews to become citizens, a
scheme designed to atone for the persecution of Jews in the 15th and
16th centuries. In 2017, Andy Yacoub, a Londoner, chose Portugal to
start a new life with his Mexican wife and young son after deciding he
could no longer tolerate living in the US while President Donald Trump
remained in office. He had worked there for 10 years as a corporate
airline pilot but has moved into property investment. Put off the UK by the acrimony over Brexit, he
considered moving to Barcelona, but decided not to live in a city “where
some parts can be covered in graffiti telling tourists to ‘go home’.” He obtained Portuguese residence permits for the
family within a few weeks and found local banks happy to lend on his
existing properties so he could expand his portfolio. “In Portugal, you
are welcomed into the community,” he said. “We feel at home here.” However, unease over the influx of foreign
residents and visitors is starting to emerge. Some fear Portugal’s growing tourism and real
estate sectors — a leading draw for foreign investors — and an
increasing number of wealthy foreign residents are pricing local people
out of the historic centres of Lisbon and Porto, where many buildings
have been converted into short-term accommodation and luxury flats. The Left Bloc, an anti-establishment party that
supports the minority Socialist government, says such schemes sharply
reduce the availability of affordable housing and fuel property bubbles. Tensions have flared over evictions that protesters
blame on landlords converting city-centre buildings for tourists and
wealthy foreigners as housing prices increase at one of the fastest
rates in Europe. “I’ve never been happier,” said Nelson Clark, a US
citizen who recently retired to Portugal. But, as a growing proportion
of foreign investment pours into real estate and hotels, he fears the
country’s growing popularity could be its undoing. “In such a lovely,
welcoming country,” he said, “mass tourism can breed resentment and lead
to other undesirable consequences if it’s not handled in a sustainable
way.” |