Foreign investment in Lisbon property hits new record // Almost 30,000 Ukrainians granted temporary protection

Portuguese news in English on Monday, April 11, 2022.

By the numbers

All the numbers are going in the right direction again. New infections and cases in hospitals are down by a decent amount, while deaths, and ICU numbers saw very slight falls last week. About 92% of the population has had two jabs and 61% has had a booster.

Report released on Friday covering period of 29/03/2022 - 04/04/2022. Source: DGS

Oligarch a member and financier of organisation that certified him as Portuguese jew

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has a key role in the financial management of the Russian organisation that certified him as the descendant of Sephardi Jews, Público reports. The certification from the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, accompanied by testimony from Alexander Boroda, a friend of the billionaire, was fundamental for his nationalisation as a Portuguese citizen. Mr Abrahamovic has also been recognised for significant donations made to Russian jewish communities over the past two decades. Portugal’s Socialist Party (PS) government will look further into the nationality law that granted the Russian citizenship to see if changes already made are enough, Público reports. 

Source: ECDC

Foreign investment in Lisbon hits new record

Foreign investment in Lisbon’s residential property market has broken another record, Diário de Notícias reports. All up, they spent €923.1 million on 1767 homes in the Urban Rehabilitation Area (ARU), with an average purchase price of €523,000, above half a million for the first time ever. The hundreds of millions represented 38% of the money spent in the ARU, a 21% jump from the previous record in 2018. Confidencial Imobiliário director Ricardo Guimarães put the surge down to instruments such as the golden visas and non-habitual residency, which “placed Lisbon on the international investment scene”. Meanwhile, the government has postponed a promised fix for the country’s housing shortages, Diário de Notícias reports. The new government’s program aims to resolve the “main” problems, without specifying what they are, but dropped a promise to resolve “every” example of indecent housing by 2024.

Almost 30,000 Ukrainians granted temporary protection

The Immigration and Borders Service (SEF) has granted almost 30,000 temporary protection orders to Ukrainians and foreigners living in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began, Diário de Notícias reports. About half as many (15,500) residency permits, including tax, social and health care numbers, have been granted. Lisbon, Cascais, Sintra, Porto and Albufeira are the most popular among the 29,560 refugees granted protections, about 10,000 of which are minors. About 360 of those arrived with someone who wasn’t their parent or legal representative and nine were unaccompanied.  

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In brief

• Government to scrap Autovoucher in favour of cut to fuel tax. The planned cut to the ISP will begin in May and reduce petrol and diesel by about 20c/L, government says. (Público) 

• TAP ends 2021 with record losses. Portuguese flag carrier posts €1.6 billion loss after billion-dollar restructure. (Público)

• German man suspected of getting 90 COVID-19 jabs to sell vaccination cards. Police investigating after he showed up at a vaccination centre two days in a row

On a lighter note

This one is part apology for the late newsletter and part celebration of the birthday of my lovely partner (and sub-editor), Daniela Sunde-Brown. Yep, those two things are obviously connected! Anyway, contrary to popular opinion, it is quite easy to get a bad pastel de nata in Lisbon. But, if you follow Daniela’s excellent guide, compiled over many painstaking taste tests (such sacrifice, all for the greater good) you can’t go wrong. She runs a great travel blog about Portugal if you ever need recommendations to send to visiting friends and family.

Please keep sharing on social media, in real life or anywhere else you see people a bit confused by the latest news.