The number of company failures in Portugal at last has started to ease off with the 2014 figure showing a decline for the first time since 2010.
There were 6,773 corporate insolvencies in 2014, with the second half of the year showing a decline in numbers.
Even taking into account the court chaos caused by the incompetence of the Ministry of Justice as it launched the new judicial map and computerised court system in September 2014, the number of insolvencies dropped 10.6% last year compared to 2013.
Of the 2014 insolvencies, 93.4% were micro-enterprises and an analysis of the figures show that the uptake of Special Revitalisation Procedures by 734 companies contributed to the overall decline in failures.
The entrepreneurial spirit is still fighting against legislation that serves to make starting and running a small business simply another form of taxation.
According to data released today, there were 35,264 new companies created in 2014, this was 1.6% more than in the previous year.
In comparison, in 2012 there was a decline of 11.5% in company registrations.
António Monteiro, the chief executive of Ignios which produced the report, said “confidence levels in businesses are recovering."
The construction sector and public works contractors suffered the greatest number of insolvencies last year (1,284 companies, or 19% of the total), followed by "other services" (1,232 and 18.2% of the total) and, thirdly, by the "retail sale" companies (1,118, 16.5%).
