Portugal as a Living Destination
When you’re researching about Portugal, you’re likely to have come across the following phrases that describes the country in a nutshell:
- Affordable cost of living
- High quality of life
- Moderate climate
- Plenty of sunshine
- One of the most peaceful countries in the world/Low crime rate
- Political Stability
Traditionally, Portugal is a destination for retirement (particularly the Brits) or the wealthy to have a second home. In the last couple of years, with the economy recovering at a good pace, more and more people from all over are looking into Portugal as a place to setup their companies, run a business, to invest and raise their family. The government has also been actively promoting Portugal as tourist destination for the last few years — with Lisbon and Porto receiving numerous tourism awards.
Besides, the Government has also started various initiatives to encourage digital innovation; the booming tech startup scene has since then been very vibrant with Web Summit moved down to Lisbon from Dublin since 2016.
Asides from tourism, business and the tech sector, since 2013, Portugal has started to promote an investment-for-residency scheme, simply known as the Golden Visa, which offers various routes for investors to invest in the country in return for a residency. As of today, data shows that 95% of the applicants obtained residency through the acquisition of a property. Another residency scheme the government initiated is the Non-Habitual Residency programme, which allows some tax discount for applicants who changed their tax addresses to Portugal. Both these programmes have attracted a significant amount of cash for the real estate and construction industries that were hit hard during the crisis.
All these were abruptly halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Hospitality and tourism no doubt are affected immediately; followed by retail businesses and office rentals. Investors’ plan were affected and some postponed their investment plans until a later date.
Life after Covid-19 Pandemic is never going to be the same again. But let us look into the brighter side of things. This pandemic has pushed us a step forward to the changes we were supposed to change but none of us did. None of the political leaders dared to change because nobody wanted to take the risk. Because any big change would require sacrifices in one way or the other.
First of all, we realized that Remote Working is possible.
Because of this, after Covid-19, I predict we are seeing a higher vacancy in offices; office buildings have to be repurposed . We will see a lot of corporate downsizing their office spaces.
This leads to our 2nd change: Robotic.
I’m sure this is not going to be the last pandemic. More will come. Productions were halted because of lockdown. Businesses are collapsing due to Covid-19, but businessmen know they can’t let this happen for a second time. Without workers, production must also continue. Robots everywhere from production to logistic. We’ll see drastic change in production and the supply chain and how robots are stepping up.
This leads to our 3rd change: Basic Universal Income
With robots taking up most of the labour-intensive work, what is likely to follow is mass unemployment. I’m sure during this process a lot of new opportunities will be created too, but for sure we’ll see a massive shift in many aspects of life. We will be entering into a world that is also unknown in the history of mankind, and right now it’s too early to say in what form this basic universal income will be distributed. However, manual labour, modern day slavery etc will become obsolete when robots take over production. This day might arrive sooner than we think, and incidents like Covid-19 pushed this one BIG step forward.
Blockchain
A lot of things in our society is based on trust. That trust comes from close contact. Although we’re much better connected than we were 30 years ago, a lot of us still prefer a physical meeting. “Social Distancing”, “Physical Distancing” are currently the most popular phrases we’re seeing in all headlines and our social media accounts, but when we just realize life got to continue, that businesses must go on when we’re forced to have no more physical presence at work. A system of trust is therefore more needed than ever. Things like smart contracts based on blockchain technology will play an important role in businesses. Some even went further to say Covid-19 will bring down the current financial system that should have happened a while back; and when this day comes, Cryptocurrency will also play a fundamental role in our lives. I’m not too sure about the latter, and let us see.
But wait, you might wonder what these 4 points have to do with Portugal? Imagine in a society brought by the 4 changes above, when:
- You no longer need to commute to work, or
- If you’ve got a business that can be run by robots, or
- You’re now on a basic universal income.
You will consider moving to a place/country where:
- it is peaceful
- it has mild climate
- it is affordable
- it offers a High Quality of Life
Can you see how these all form the circle? Again, it’s too early to say much, but a country like Portugal will no doubt be a favourite living destination not just for the wealthy, but it indeed deserves your consideration on the top spot for your next move during the Post-Covid19 era. Forbes recently also said so, and Portugal came #1 as the top choice on its list.
Post originally written on 21st April, 2020
