Olhão needs to develop beyond tourism, defends PSD
The Political Committee of PSD Olhão responds to the statements of the Mayor of Olhão, António Miguel Pina, who, in an interview with the newspaper Sul Informação, attacked the PSD’s position in the Municipal Assembly, for having voted against the acquisition, by municipality, the former BelaOlhão factory for real estate speculation purposes.
In declarations to the aforementioned newspaper, António Miguel Pina admitted that the Municipality of Olhão intends to sell the space (which he bought for 4.5 million euros) for “at least twice as much” to “possible interested in transforming that land into a tourist space and commercial ”, specifically for the construction of“ a 5-star hotel, commercial spaces and a basement parking lot ”.
As we have stated against this business, which has not been very transparent since the beginning, the mayor of São Paulo attacked the PSD’s position, accusing it of “revealing tremendous incompetence”, posing a question, as a challenge: “If the PSD is against … what should have been done then? ”.
Accepting the challenge, PSD Olhão clarifies that, in the first place, it considers that an autarchy should be a facilitating agent for the entrepreneur and not an investor or real estate agent.
Secondly, he argues that Olhão needs to diversify the county’s economic base and not bet everything solely on tourism, under the risk of becoming entirely dependent on an area that in times of crisis (like the one we are going through) is the first to collapse and the last to get up again, just by checking the calamity situation that the Algarve is going through due to unemployment, especially in the tourism area.
As an alternative to the Olhão City Council project for that area of the city, in front of Docapesca, PSD Olhão defends an innovative vision, focusing on the creation of a technological park facing the areas of the sea, fisheries and renewable energies, in an eventual partnership with the University of Algarve, with the objective of securing young people in the municipality, creating qualified jobs and generating wealth throughout the year and not just on a seasonal basis.
PSD Olhão clarifies that it has nothing against the construction of new hotels and commercial spaces in the city, nor against the bet on tourism, as long as it is not on an exclusive basis, nor does it justify the sale of the entire coastline of the municipality to the hotel industry.