Portugal - Alguns factos

Country Description

Population (2003)

Area: 93.033 km2
Total population: 10.4 million
Active population: 5.4 million (51.7%)
Female working population: 2.5 million (46% of total working population)
Average hour labor cost in the industry: 6.9 _
Secondary school index: (25-64 years): 20.6%
Dominant religion: catholic (94%)

Economic Performance (2003)

GNP per capita: 9 170 €
GNP evolution: (-) 1.3%
Public deficit: 2.8%
Inflation rate: 3.2%
Unemployment rate: 6.4% (7.3% for women and 14.6% for youth)

Structure of the Corporate Sector (1999)

In 1999, there were 1.14 million registered businesses, of which only 212 580 (19%) were companies and the rest (81%) were individual entrepreneurs. The explanation lays in the fact that active people working in a non regular basis have to register themselves fiscally as individual entrepreneurs in order to be able to work legally.



International Conventions subscribed by the Country

United Nations (UN)
Portugal is member of the UN and signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

International Labour Organisation (ILO)
Portugal is a member of ILO since 1919, having ratified seventy-seven ILO conventions, including all the most important ones in the following fields:

Forced labour: # 29 – Forced labour; # 105 – Abolition of forced labour;

Freedom of association: # 87 – Freedom of association and right to organize; # 98 – Right to organise and collective bargaining;
Discrimination: # 100 - Equal remuneration; # 111 – Employment and occupation;

Child labour: # 138 – Minimum age (16); # 182 – Worst forms of child labour.

Council of Europe
Portugal signed and ratified more than half of the Council of Europe Conventions (99 out of 195). Nevertheless, it failed to subscribe or ratify some CSR related conventions/protocols that have already entered into force:

# 130 – Convention on Insider Trading (entry into force in 1991);

# 133 – Protocol to the Convention on Insider Trading (entry into force in 1991);

# 174 – Civil Law Convention on Corruption (entry into force in 2003).

Portugal has also signed the Kyoto Protocol concerning greenhouse effect gases (1997).