IMF advises Portugal to increase housing supply to contain prices

O International Monetary Fund (IMF) today advised Portugal to adopt measures to increase housing supply, revitalize the rental market and expand social housing, aiming to improve accessibility and contain house prices.

“Improving the accessibility of housing in terms of prices requires measures to increase supply, revitalize the rental market and eventually expand social housing,” said the director of the European IMF Department, Mateusz Szczurek, in response to the Lusa agency in a meeting with European journalists in Brussels.

He stressed that the supply problems “are not exclusive to Portugal”, and they are also significant in Spain and other European countries, and acknowledged that its resolution may require “sizable regulatory work”.

“The path seems to be clear. Of course, these measures take time to have an effect on prices,” Mateusz Szczurek told Lusa.

Already questioned about the Portuguese budgetary situation, the Deputy Director of the European Department of the IMF, Helge Berger, highlighted the performance of public accounts in the last three years, considering that the country has behaved “exceptionally positive” in this regard.

“ We have seen a development of the primary balance – which excludes interest payments from debt – for clearly positive values, and we believe this trend will continue,” he noted.