Home Actuality Portugal: Santarém airport could create 170,000 new jobs – developers

Portugal: Santarém airport could create 170,000 new jobs – developers

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The Magellan 500 project to build an airport in Santarém may generate about 170,000 new direct, indirect and induced jobs, manager Carlos Brazão said on Tuesday.

The information was presented to journalists on the sidelines of the “New Airport: Time to Decide,” conference organised by the Economic and Social Council (CES), where the project for an airport in Santarém was presented publicly for the first time by Carlos Brazão, who is a member of the consortium that carried out studies on that location for three years.

“In the medium term, an infrastructure such as this can generate something like 170,000 new direct, indirect and induced jobs,” said the manager, whose partner in the consortium is businessman Humberto Pedrosa, from the Barraqueiro group, which was a shareholder in TAP.

Asked about statements by the mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, who accused the Santarem project promoters of real estate interests, Carlos Brazão denied such interests.

“I am doing this in the spirit of mission. If everything goes well, a project like this will take a few years, so I will have to work for a long time, and if this is the last task of my life, I will end my active career with an enormous sense of duty fulfilled and an enormous sense of use to the country”, he said.

Carlos Brazão also denied any political influence for the development of the project.

Asked about the ANA Aeroportos concession for an airport built in Santarém, Brazão stressed that it was a private initiative project outside the concession contract between the state and the airport manager, which belongs to French multinational Vinci.

“It doesn’t mean that we are against or in favour of anyone. We are totally open. […] If that is the case, if all the stakeholders and decision-makers agree with us, we give our mission for accomplished,” he said.

Concerning the investment figure of around €1 billion, he explained that this was an estimated value for the project’s first phase without giving details of the budget for the following phases.

Even so, he added, “these are much smaller investments than other projects, namely on the southern bank.

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