The administration of the ports of Sines and the Algarve plans to invest €21.5 million this year, most of which will be in Sines.
The ports chief, João Franco, today announced the investment in the three ports under his management and admitted that €18.8 million will be invested in the Alentejo ports, leaving the Algarve ports of Faro and Portimão with the balance.
The bulk of the investment will be channeled into the Port of Sines container terminal, a contract worth around €12 million which will see the access deepened significantly to enable larger ships to enter.
The port of Setúbal also will benefit from investment leaving the Algarve with €2.7 million, an amount that does not even start to address the investment needed to expand the cruise ship terminal in Portimão and upgrade the crumbling facilities in Faro.
Faro and Portimão ports were forcibly integrated into the Alentejo ports management last year which João Franco called "a bad deal" for the port authority.
Whether Franco meant a bad deal for the Algarve or a bad deal for his management team which clearly now is too thinly spread is not clear.
What has become very clear is that, despite the promise from Economy Minister Pires de Lima for an urgent €10 million for the Algarve’s ports, the Algarve upgrade simply is not going to happen anytime soon.
See also
http://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/2976-port-development-in-portimao-may-never-happen#comment-1554
