Key Benefits:
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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,