Portugal's Head of State, Cavaco Silva, has sent a warning to Portugal’s political elite and the Portuguese people that in order to reduce the current debt ratio, an effort over ‘several years’ will be necessary.
Cavaco Silva has put his thoughts on paper in a dour and gloomy prognosis for Portugal’s economy in an attempt to engineer a consensus of leading political parties so as to please foreign lenders.
"Assuming an annual growth in output of 4% and an interest rate on public debt of 4% this would require an annual primary surplus of around 3% per cent of GDP to deduce the debt ration to a target of 60%. In 2014 it is expected that the primary surplus will be 0.3% of GDP."