Embraer (Brazil) is to invest €148 million on two aviation component plants at Évora, Alentejo creating more than 2500 direct jobs. The factories will produce 13-14 aircraft/month and the project includes design, R&D, and engineering technology development work in conjunction with Portuguese universities. The planned Embraer investment is equivalent in importance to the VW Autoeuropa plant which came on stream in 1995. Embraer is the world’s 3rd largest aviation manufacturer after Boeing and Airbus. The aircraft plants at Évora, the first by Embraer in Europe, are due to open by 2011. One plant will build structures, machinery and assembly line for wings, the other will build tail assemblies for planes such as Embraer 170, 190 and Legacy (executive jets). Talks to persuade Embraer to invest at Évora first began in 2006 with discussions about increased investment in OGMA-Indústria Aeronáutica de Portugal (65% held by EADS/Airbus).

Luís Patrão, chairman of Turismo de Portugal, the National Tourism Agency says the country has significant room to boost foreign tourism attractions in less well known parts of Portugal particularly as 86% of all bed nights currently sold are concentrated in the Algarve, Lisbon and Madeira". He welcomed initiatives to develop top quality, high-class facilities and leisure attractions in lesser known regions. He pointed to the recent inauguration of Douro Palace hotel, at Santa Cruz do Douro in the Douro wine valley. The €9 million Douro Palace resort and spa facility was developed by José Luís Carneiro through JASE a development company based in Gaia (north). Luís Carneiro said JASE aimed to build three additional hotel units in the Douro valley area through to end 2012. It has plans for a second hotel at Pala on the Douro. Luís Carneiro said the site of the planned third hotel had yet to be finalised but was likely to be somewhere between Baião and Régua. The 60-room Douro Palace offers a 80-seat restaurant, three bars and four conference rooms. It is geared to nature. health and leisure tourism activities and plans partnerships with radical sporting promoters and cultural associations.

Government's controversial system to simplify conveyancing and real estate transactions is expected to save consumers some €121 million. The new measures, introduced under the Simplex program (designed to cut civil service red tape and procedures) were described as “an authentic revolution in terms of the land registry”. The sector is currently worth €7 billion and there are more than 200,000 transactions a year. Under the scheme the cost of a land registration entry is now a single fixed fee of €500 on purchase and sale of mortgaged property, or €250 where no mortgage is involved. The same charge is levied for establishing a mortgage over unencumbered property. The changes have been strongly criticized by the Notaries Council which is particularly angered by the fact that government first privatized notary offices and then set about undermining the basis of their prime income stream by removing or changing goal posts. Notaries Council chairman Joaquim Barata Lopes insisted that land registry charges were rising under the new arrangements to “twice their current level”. Other critics of the change include Luís Pestana de Vasconcelos, a member of the Legal Group at Oporto Economics Faculty who said risks in property transactions would be increased by changes that remove the notary public and notarized deeds from the equation.