International, Portugal & Madeira News from Paul Abbiati:
Thankyou for the contributions from Peter in the comments section on the termination of the Madeira-Portimão Sea Transport
Boot Sale Funchal Sunday?
Mercado de Agricultura Biológica, Largo da Restauração, Funchal, every Tuesday
71% of consumers classified the market as very good or excellent
An opinion poll Survey conducted by the Government, The Secretaria Regional do Ambiente e Recursos Naturais (SRARN), had the following findings:
consumers were:
“muito satisfeitos com o projecto. 71% dos inquiridos (num total de 137 compradores) classificam o Mercado de Agricultura Biológico como muito bom ou excelente e cerca de 62% considera que os produtos apresentam uma muito boa, ou excelente, relação preço/qualidade. 97% dos clientes fizeram uma apreciação global entre boa e excelente.”
Full article from the Diario Newspaper: http://www.dnoticias.pt/impressa/diario/304273/madeira/304322-consumidores-rendidos-ao-mercado-biologico
Free violin and clarinet concert at Centro de História do Atlântico, Funchal 9pm, Friday night performed by students of Madeira’s Conservatório
Near perfection doesn’t save Mourinho
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc98GG842P8
From the BBC: “Barcelona survived a late fightback by Real Madrid to secure their passage through to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey with a 4-3 aggregate win.”
From Portugal Daily View:
Mission impossible: to recover from a home game 1-2 deficit in Camp Nou… Or so it seemed. Real Madrid came out of the box swinging hard, stopping Barça’s tiki-taka and creating three clear chances to score. Madrid’s players seemed to be everywhere and recovered the ball quickly and high in the field. Everything was nearly perfect, going as planned. Well, all except for those pesky efforts which either hit the woodwork, went wide or Pinto stopped.
The problem of facing the best club in the world is that it usually has the best player in the world. As such, Messi pulled a moment of magic from his pocket, assisting Pedro Rodriguez (of whom no defender seemed to be aware of…) in what was the first dagger stuck into Madrid’s hopes. Out of nowhere Barcelona quashed any chances Real had to reach the semis and keep defending its Copa del Rey trophy.
Barely recovered from the goal, Real was already down by two just before the break. Dani Alves achieved perfection when his one-time shot was only stopped by the top corner of Casillas’ net. One of those moments which in itself is worth the price of admission to the best football match in the world. At half-time Real’s almost perfect performance resulted in a 0-2 deficit (1-4 on aggregate), and all Barcelona needed were two minutes… It’s tough to compete with absolute perfection.
Full article: http://www.portugaldailyview.com/01-whats-new/football-when-near-perfection-is-just-not-enough
Portugal’s airports busier in 2011
From Portugal News:
“Last year airport’s run by national Airport Management Company ANA saw a 6.7 percent rise in passenger figures, compared to 2010.
Overall, between January and December 2011, 27.6 million passengers passed through an ANA airport; 1.8 million more than during 2010.
Figures show a noticeable rise, of 9.9 percent, in the number of people travelling within the traditional sector. Market-wise, growth was noted from the UK, France and Spain.
National flag-carrier TAP showed a rise in passenger figures of 38.2 percent;
Irish low-cost airline Ryanair experienced growth of 13.7 percent, followed by easyJet, with 12.5 percent.
Together the three airlines make up nearly two thirds (64.4 percent) of ANA airports’ global traffic.
EasyJet, Europe’s second largest budget airline, says its quarterly revenue jumped thanks to things like more business travellers flying with it
Comparing December 2011 to the same month of the year before, ANA airport passenger traffic during the first showed a drop of 0.4 percent in relation to the latter.
The biggest boosts in figures came from France and Germany
Nationality-wise, the biggest boosts in figures came from France and Germany. ANA highlighted positive efforts from UK low-cost airline easyJet and German national airline Lufthansa.
Lisbon’s Portela Airport saw a growth in passengers of 1.1 percent, though Faro Airport (Algarve) and the Azores Airport, both managed by ANA, saw drops of 8.8 and 7.2 percent respectively.
Figures at Oporto’s Sá Carneiro Airport remained unchanged.
Lisbon Airport: exclusive family area
In related news, this week Lisbon Airport inaugurated an exclusive family area.
On Tuesday, 24 January, a space dedicated to families was opened in the airport’s departures area with the aim of making the experience of travelling with children a more comfortable and enjoyable one.
The area includes a microwave for heating food, a bottle warmer, food and hygiene product vending machines, games for children, and comfortable sofas.
It was inaugurated under the airport’s ‘Family Airport’ sub-brand, which aims to identify ANA airports as family-friendly infrastructures…”
http://www.theportugalnews.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?id=1149-4
€37mn upgrade planned at Mitsubishi truck plant
From Portugal News:
“The Portuguese government declared an expansion plan at the Mitsubishi Fuso Truck Europe plant to be of “strategic interest”, offering incentives and opening the way for an investment of nearly €37 million by German owner Daimler.
MFTE plant at Tramagal in central Portugal will upgrade technical capacity and double work force to 675
Under the plan, the MFTE plant at Tramagal in central Portugal will upgrade technical capacity and more than double its work force to 675 to build a new model of the light CANTER truck, which is exported to more than 30 European markets. Officials estimated the upgrade and expansion will allow sales worth a total of €3.3 billion through 2020…”
All images from Diario Newspaper unless otherwise stated
Martin will you be coming back to Madeira again?
We need to avoid the bloody olypics so I suppose we should try to get back to Madeira.
Facebook announcement by Naviera Armas just a few minutes ago that they will make an announcement later on about their ferry.
The locals reckon there is so much involved with this move,
The fishing boats from funchal to Camaro do Lobo
The Porto santo boat to canical.
Demolition of all the facilities left over to allow even more cruise ships in.
Charges to cross the quay at Canical very very expensive and a monopoly..
Too many fingers in the corruption bucket.
Perhaps? Who Knows?
from the dnoticias.pt Government refuses to give full exemption of fees to Naviera Armas..The Government refuses to grant full exemption from port dues to the Naviera Armas, said the regional secretary of Tourism and Transport, Esudante Conception at the end of the meeting of the Governing Council this afternoon.
The minister explained that the owner already enjoys a Spanish special scheme, by paying only half the normal rates, so the executive is unable to extend the limits of this benefit. Student Conception also said he will write a letter to the Naviera Armas and expressed his discontent that the company has expressed canarian only to customers of its intention to abandon the line Funchal-Portimão, not previously informing the Government on the question.
It is recalled that the Director of the line, Jalvo Javier Garcia, is in Funchal in negotiations and it was anticipated for this Friday the release of a final position of the company..
from the dnoticias.pt….ARMAS announced last trip…The Naviera Armas is already inform customers that this week-end is in fact the last trip of the ferry line-Canary-Funchal Portimao.
Confirmation is to be communicated to some of the main customers of the shipowner Spanish and thus confirms the worst scenario outlined in recent days: Madeira loses its weekly shipping line had to Portimão and the Canary Islands.
The answer comes from Naviera few minutes after the regional secretary of Tourism and Transport announced that the Regional Government will not bow to the wishes of ARMS.
Read more about this subject in our print edition tomorrow.
from the dnoticias pt ….Naviera Armas blame only the Regional Government by the end of the line..The director of online Portimao-Madeira-Canary said this afternoon that the Regional Government’s refusal to lower the fees at the port of Funchal was the decisive factor that determined the end of this maritime connection.
In a press conference, Javier Garcia Jalvo revealed that the continuity of the line was dependent on two factors – an increase of the tariff charged to customers and the reduction of weapons of port charges. During the negotiations, which lasted until today, all major customers Madeira (wholesalers, exporters and supermarket chains) agreed to pay more for the service. However, the executive rejected Madeira reviewing fees (which cost 1 million euros to the owner in Spanish last year), as announced Secretary with responsibility for transport, Conception student at the Naviera Armas definitely abandon this route.
Jalvo Javier Garcia also placed totally aside the hypothesis that the weapons re-running weekly flights between Madeira and the Canaries, as happened in 2006 and 2007.
Madeira needs to remeber that reductions in prices brings more business. Putting prices up does not work. The madeiran government did not want this ferry service and 125£ for a truck to land at Funchal is stupid.
See facebook for the chatges listed. So much more than elsewhere.
I am not looking forward to the chaos tomorrow as we try to board
Martin Best of luck on your travel back to the uk. The Governments have not learned any thing. They like sheep with each other.That what got us in this mess. They ring or travel to each country for ideas then think for them self. Even now they all raise retirement age, to save money. Again they should be countries where they should say we do not need to. It the people who always carry the can for their mistakes. History book full of it. They pass on more responsibility to others, then blame them like the banks. Yes banks to have blame, but the government job is to govern and monitor hence the word Government. Too many still blame others when they should say we failed doing our job. We need new politics. in the EU land but USA as well. I do not understand why in the EU land they no pressure to get ride of the waste in the EU Parliament, that money could be used to pay the country debt off or create business and jobs.
Peter
You have the job.
We are packed ready to go.
Had just completed shopping to last a month when announcement made of rhe cessation of the service.
Had to give most away.
Daresay we will not get any compensation
BYE BYE Madeira (an unlucky destination for us )
Sorry Martin. Bon Voyage – we shall wave as you pass. We hope to see you here again …… like the curates egg – not all bad.
Martin Think we got more idea on how to run things then the leaders. best of luck
I won’t even mention the U.K. and Bank Boss Bonus……the great divide, them and us and reality – Davos? Hot air, canapes and junkets for those firmly on the other side of the divide. Talk:
“The view from the street is that what we have seen is corporate greed, the financial sector getting away with [it],” said its secretary general Salil Shetty.
“Where is the accountability? Many of the people who caused the crisis are walking around here at the World Economic Forum.”
“The crisis response that is being proposed is to cut further and the poorest and most vulnerable sections are going to be further hit by the response.”
Indeed:
Crisis-hit countries such as Greece and Spain are implementing deep government spending cuts and tax rises in order to try to bring down their deficits….
So those of us who are paying for the “fat cats” mistakes are expected to keep on paying (more) abd recieve even less …..mmmm, I wonder just how much the average (?) European MP gets + expenses + pensions just for talking to others in a similar position? Not to mention the “leaders”.
Greece will default, it’s only a matter of time.
The I.M.F. won’t help out – won’t take a haircut.
Therefore the Private Investors will follow suit.
Contagion, leading to
Portugal?
Ooops.
We’ve got two chickens, could they help?
From Martin …. the first six cabins they were allocated did NOT have any electric lights working! They found one in the end ….. Bon Voyage Matey.
Interesting blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere?
A theme like yours with a few simple adjustements would really make my blog
stand out. Please let me know where you got your design.
Thank you