“ We have to be very strict in directing the support where it really counts”

O minister of the Economy today argued that public support to companies, to compensate for the rise of fuels, should be concentrated in the sectors that are most dependent in order to limit the impact on taxpayers.

“ I think that the government is taking a very sensible and very reasonable position on this issue, because the support that is given is support that comes out of public coffers, from taxpayers' money. We have to be very strict in directing the support where it really counts, where it makes a difference ", said Castro Almeida.

At the end of the signing of the constitution of the working group for the preparation of the Local Power Code, which took place in Coimbra, the governor told journalists that aid should be given to companies where fuel costs represent a significant share of production expenditure.

In their view, the lack of support for these companies could lead to an increase in the final prices of products, particularly on supermarket shelves.

“What we do not want is to make the increase in oil prices pass on to supermarket shelves. We want to prevent this from happening or mitigating this risk and that is why we are very directing support to companies that rely heavily on oil prices,” he said.

For the Minister for Economic Affairs and Territorial Cohesion, it would not be appropriate to support all companies, as they are not all equally exposed to rising fuel prices.

“ For companies in general it makes no sense, they compete with each other. We could not be supporting all companies,” he said.

Castro Almeida also recalled that, in parallel, the government directed measures to families, by reducing taxes and an extraordinary supplement to pensions, placing resources directly in the hands of citizens.

“ Instead of subsidizing gasoline, we can make sure people do not reduce consumption. It is better to put money in people’s hands and trust their common sense to decide what to do with this money, which is little, despite everything”, he concluded.