The business association ACRAL has hit out at the scale of the IKEA project planned for a site on the Loulé-Faro border and wants to explain to the public the affects the development will have on local trade.
According to Victor Guerreiro, the ACRAL president, despite what has been said in the media about the Algarve’s IKEA project, "the local population remains unaware of the real scale of what is to be built at the Faro airport junction of the Via do Infante."
"People think this is a normal sized IKEA store so fail to realise the dangers it poses to the regional economy," said Guerreiro.
"The Algarve has to realise that this is a commercial mega-project covering over 40 hectares, a colossus that promises to dry up everything around it, like a eucalyptus," according to the ACRAL boss.
The IKEA project covers more than 40.7 hectares with 220 stores in two shopping malls and two large stores of around 2 hectares.
"This commercial giant threatens the local economy," claims Guerrero, stressing that ACRAL "has never opposed the opening of a standard IKEA store in the Algarve."
"What they want to build just off the Via do Infante covers land traversed by aquifers, land that always had an agricultural use right at the Faro exit when the Algarve central hospital is planned to be built. This is a mega shopping center that threatens the environment, the sustainability of the land and works against the regional economy," says the association.
"Once opened, this commercial giant threatens to destroy not only our traditional shops, but also indirectly all those companies that provide services which will disappear directly as a result of this project. This domino effect must be emphasised," says Guerrero.
The Algarve business group members do not dismiss the idea of an IKEA store, but do not want a megalomaniac project that will create an artificial centre at the motorway junction which will have serious consequences by the creation of a structural imbalance in the distribution of economic activities within the region.
The president of ACRAL, the association which speaks for the group of six Algarve business associations that oppose the IKEA project, says we "have to demystify for the Algarve what this mega project really means and the dangers it brings for the economy and employment."
"The Algarve entrepreneurs have nothing against a simple IKEA store which would not threaten anyone, but they do opposes the rambling commercial project which will create a business concentration with which they cannot compete at all. This will be deadly for a significant part the regional economy," concludes Guerrero.
Meanwhile IKEA's contractors continue to prepare the site and positive media comments continue to reflect the majority of locals' opinions.
