Rotarians don’t just donate money, they put in months of effort to raise funds to buy specialist equipment. The latest fundraising drive, initiated by Rotary E-club Porches International, produced the €24,000 desperately needed by the Food Bank to increase its effectiveness.

A spanking new electric forklift was presented to the Food Bank’s distribution centre in Portimão where it will speed up delivery and distribution, making operations safer as well as creating more floor space by stacking food containers.

The Algarve’s reservoirs are at levels well below normal and managers of the region’s water supply company Águas do Algarve says they are worried.

In late January 2016, according to Portugal’s weather service, almost all of the Algarve technically was in a drought situation.

The provisional figures for last year’s tourist income gave rise to great hopes that the final results would be record beaters – they are.

The National Statistics Institute has issued confirmation that in addition to the airport being close to capacity and rounds of golf played at a new high, the vital hotel sector registered a new high in 2015.

Alcoutim council has failed to sell its Guadiana River Hotel within the 60 day window, and now is offering the property for lease with an option to buy.

The hotel has been closed for years and mayor Osvaldo dos Santos Gonçalves said that as the business had failed to sell at an asking proce of €1,3 million, the council now is happy to lease it with the bonus of offering permission to extend the property on land currently occupied by a tennis court.

At long last the Prime Minister has voiced his opinion on the Bank of Portugal’s endless delays in sorting out those investors who has their BES investments wiped out.

António Costa believes that the lack of regulatory action from the Bank of Portugal has been ‘lamentable’ and that he can’t believe that not a single public body is responsible.

A Chinese bank in Madrid was raided by Spain’s serious crime squad on Wednesday as part of an investigation into alleged money laundering and smuggling.

ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China), which began operating in Spain in 2011, is China’s biggest lender.

The Bank of Portugal has blocked the sale of the International Bank of Cape Verde (BICV) to businessman José Veiga.

The businessman had requested authorisation from the Bank of Portugal to acquire all the shares of the International Bank of Cape Verde (BICV), former known as the Banco Espírito Santo de Cabo Verde, SA (BESCV) held by Novo Banco on 18 January.

The Efisa investment bank was sold in 2015 for €38.3 million to a company of 'Angolan and Portuguese investors' who were approved by the Bank of Portugal.

Before Efisa was sold, the State company Parparticipadas pumped €90 million of taxpayers’ cash into the ailing company which was part of Banco Português de Negócios, which already had been bailed out by the taxpayer.