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The Destruction of Portuguese Home Produce Markets

I wish the news from the Algarve could improve. About the only thing I can say in its favour is about the weather, and, unfortunately, it has been rather chilly of late.

The latest dreadful news concerns the effect on the local produce markets and the various fairs. I have mentioned this matter before. Let me explain what is happening.

The government, in an attempt to destroy the local economy, has passed a law requiring all non-computerised businesses to issue government sponsored receipts for all transactions. These receipts cost c50. This is effectively a further tax on sales on top of the punitive 23% IVA (vat). However, adding such a cost to a typical transaction in a vegetable market is suicidal.

Let's analyse the maths.

You have to get to and from the market with your produce. Even if you only drive four or five miles, with petrol costing about €1.60 a litre, you are going to use a litre to get there and a litre to get home again, so immediately you are €3 down. Now you have to pay for the stall. There goes another €3. Under the new proposals all stallholders will have to pay a fixed tax of €63 a month, which works out at €15 a week.

Most of the stallholders make anything from €20 - €50 euros per week. If you take out €21 for the costs, that means on some weeks the stallholders will already be running at a loss.

Now add in the cost of the receipts. That comes to €1 for every two customers. Say you get a reasonably good day, and you have twenty customers, that's another €10 lost. Your costs are now €31. It's not worth leaving home. You are giving your produce away.

When I go shopping I buy some tomatoes for about €1. Half of that now has to go towards a silly piece of paper. I buy pumpkin for about c40. The receipt costs more than the vegetable. The whole economic base of selling market produce has been destroyed.

What the Portuguese government has done is wipe out local vegetable markets, leaving your only choice the local supermarket.

My own view is that it is criminal to behave in this way. As I have said many times before, one needs to be very careful about where one settles these days. The weather may be an inducement, but the real test is the attitude of the government. Dont even think of settling in a country where the government is against you. Ultimately you wont like it, and you will be depressed continually reading bad news, and continually having your standard of living eroded.

This is another nail in the already heavily nailed coffin of Portugal. Very sad.

john


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