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Recommends To The Government The Adoption Of Measures To Streamline The Development And Economic Growth And The Promotion Of Employment And Vocational Training In The Regions Of Vale Do Ave And Vale Do Cávado

Original Language Title: Recomenda ao Governo a adopção de medidas tendentes a dinamizar o desenvolvimento e o crescimento económico e a promoção do emprego e formação profissional nas regiões do Vale do Ave e Vale do Cávado

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DRAFT RESOLUTION NO. 294 /X

" It Recommends the Government to adopt measures to streamline development

and economic growth and promotion of employment and vocational training in the

Regions of the Valley of the Ave and Valley of the Cávado "

Exhibition of Motives

It is recognized that the Portuguese economy lives on an adjustment process, reaching

significantly sectors that constitute by itself an important role in employment, in the

national exports and the Gross Domestic Product. The process of globalization with which the

Portuguese companies, in particular the most vulnerable to international competition, are

Faced, it is a huge challenge that is being overcome in many situations,

very though they subsist complex problems.

The District of Braga constitutes itself as a young, entrepreneurial and industrial region,

open to the outside, with a strong exporter pendor in an attitude that has been recognized by

all sectors of the national economy, demonstrating the ability to overcome the

difficulties and the challenges that arise. The regional entrepreneurial is visible, and the

Program Company on Time is of this example, having constituted more than 3,700 companies

in the district.

New and alicious technological base business areas are currently emerging, in which

companies, research and knowledge developed in the District will have an important

role to play. It is the case of the bet in a cluster of health, associating research

scientific in the area of pharmaceutical production, to the knowledge, to the creation and production of

medical devices, among others.

The Braga District is in the first line of the modernization of the economic fabric

national, either by the creation of new technological pener companies, or by incorporation

technological in traditional industries. Never, like today, traditional industrials have been

so receptive to incorporating technology, betting on the brand concept and promoting

internationally its products, in an attitude of consolidation of its global role,

contributing in a significant way to the creation of national wealth.

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In 2006 the Governments of Portugal and Spain took one of the most decisions

relevant to the future of the region and that it is concerned with the installation of the International Laboratory

of Nanotechnology (INL) in Braga. The Laboratory will have about 200 researchers, in a

annual investment of plus 30 million euros, reparties between the two countries. This

investment alia-se to other research centres that have won accreditation

international of which are examples the Institute of Polymers and Composites or the Institute

European of Excellence in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, seated in the

Avepark. They are investments that will unquestionably create more employment, but mostly better

employment.

With the reform of higher education institutions stresses the entry of elements

external in the strategic definition body that aims for greater proximity to the fabric

economic. The University of Minho (U.M.) has been a pioneer, through its various

departments, in the development of regional capacities that result in more

economic development. In the region, polytechnic education has seen a very high reinforcement

significant of the number of pupils, particularly through the action of the IPCA-Institute

Polytechnic of Cávado and Ave with the addition in about 25% of the number of discents in

2007. In addition to the higher education institutions also the Science and Technology Park

Avepark, the Citeve-Technological Centre for the Textile Industries and the Apparel of Portugal, among

others, have contributed to putting the region among the highest potential entrepreneurial and

creative of the country.

At the level of education and qualifications, the regions of the Ave and the Cávado are the

take advantage of the opportunities that exist, since soon with the constitution of New Centres

Opportunities, where approximately 30 thousand residents in this region are currently enrolled, and that

have in the Schools and vocational training centres, but also in the Entrepreneur Associations,

an attentive and committed response that matters to highlight. Companies and business associations

of the region were, in reality, of the first to join the New Opportunities Initiative, having

for the purpose has been concluded hundreds of protocols with the National Agency for the

Qualification, I.P. and the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training, I.P. (IEFP), covering

thousands of workers from these companies.

In the social area is significant the number of applications and approvals in the framework of

two phases of the PARES program-Program of Enlargement of the Social Equipment Network.

Of the dynamism of IPSS in the Braga District has resulted in a high number of responses to

crèches, third age and disabled, with a direct consequence on job creation and the

provision of offers that facilitate the reconciliation between family and professional life.

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We recognize that there are critical success factors in the region encompassing the NUT III of the

Bird and the Cávado and that it matters to highlight:

a) The scientific and research capacity that exists in the region through the institutions of

higher education, international laboratories or technological centres;

b) Industrial entrepreneurship with the creation of more and modern enterprises, many of

technological base and incorporating more and more I &D;

c) The traditional industries of the textile, clothing or footwear, which are going on a

path of modernization, of innovation, and of creating own brands, taking over the

its own distribution circuits;

d) The existence of educational and training institutions, but also associations

business and union entrepreneurs who have defined the path of training and qualification of the

human resources as one of its main emblems;

e) A young and dynamic population that through better qualifications is available

to accept the challenge of the modernization of the region and the country.

We know that, simultaneously to this framework, there are problems that result from the

economic process. Unemployment in the region records values above the national average, although

having registered a decrease in recent years (-4.4%, between December 2005 and the same

month of 2004 and -17.7% between the same months of 2006 and 2007). The unemployment situation is

more delicate when it reaches workers with low qualifications, with more age and that

they find greater difficulties in returning to the labour market, translated into greater

times of permanence in unemployment, highlighting in this context female unemployment.

Public policies should be able to alleviate inequalities and combat a

situation that has increasingly dual characteristics. The existence of a part of the population and

of companies competing in the global market, being in the first line in innovation and the

creation with evident success, coexists with social problems in those sectors and in the

workers with the greatest difficulty adapting to the changes demanded.

The recognition of this situation has led the Government to strengthen the active policies of

employment and training in the region, covering a very wide range of instruments, suitable for

diversity of situations and privileging those that have been shown to be most effective, highlighting

in that scope the following results:

a) Increase in about 50% the total number of covered by these policies in the region,

face to the value recorded in 2004, increasing the unemployment coverage ratio

enrolled from about 26% in 2004, to 37% in 2007. At the same time, the resources

affections to the region to support this increase in the number of covered has also grown

about 15%, in this same period, having entailed an investment of about 115

M€.

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b) The Employment Centres of the region have been recording the increase in the offers received

in recent years (+ 5.1, between 2004 and 2005, + 5.8% between 2005 and 2006 and 12% between 2006

and 2007), reaching in this last year a value (about 37 thousand) only equated to the year

2000. Also the placements of unemployed increased by 6.7% in 2007, face to

2004.

c) Within the framework of the New Opportunities Initiative have signed up in New Centres

Opportunities (CNO) about 30 thousand adults during 2007/2008 and more than 14 thousand in

2005 and 2006-that is, more than 76% percent of the inscriptions occurred in the last three years. In the

same period were certified by these centres 4,775 adults.

For the increase in the implementation of the CNO in the region was fundamental the enlargement of the

respective network-existing in Region 8 CNO in 2005, being today in operation

a total of 50 CNO.

d) Still recently the Government has announced that they will be allocated, in the next seven years,

about 1.2 M€ in active employment policies, training and social cohesion in the district

of Braga, through the Human Potential Operational Program.

In these terms, the Assembly of the Republic resolves, in the constitutional terms and

regimental applicable, recommend to the Government that:

1. Reinforce active employment and vocational training policies in the regions of the Ave and

Cávado, notably through the monies of the QREN-Reference Framework

National Strategic.

2. Promoting the evaluation of the network of existing vocational training equipment and

bet on its reinforcement, notably through articulation and cooperation with

business or sector associations, authorities as well as other actors

regional.

3. Equacione a reinforcement of incentives for companies for the hiring of workers

long-term unemployed, notably those of older age,

valorising, also, in this way, active ageing.

4. Give particular attention to the application of the INNOV-YOUTH Programme, which aims at employment

qualified from young people in Small and Medium Enterprises, in the regions of the Ave and the

Cked.

5. Reinforce the training initiatives in the area of entrepreneurship and the creation of the

Employment itself, particularly in the scope of Adult Education and Training.

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6. Continue to keep up with particular attention to the employment situation in the textile sector and

of clothing with a view to a possible application from the region NUT II (North) to the Fund

of Adjustment to Globalization, which integrates monies for support for the unemployed.

7. Equacione and encourage new investment projects with a view to diversification

region industrial area within the framework of the competences of the AIECEP.

8. Promoting, with particular attention, the processes of industrial restructuring in progress or

to occur in the region, within the framework of the AGIIRE-Office of Intervention for the

Corporate Restructuring.

9. Equacione support support for projects in the field of development of the world

rural and the tourism sector in the region, with a view to balanced development and

sustained from all over the region.

Assembly of the Republic, March 18, 2008

The Deputies,