The PSD/Madeira party has highlighted that the Regional Budget for 2021 will be reinforcing investment in the promotion of Madeira as a tourist destination to the tune of €22 million.

"Tourism has been the most harmed activity and has seen the most serious consequences", said the Madeiran Social Democrat deputy Carlos Rodrigues.

This situation has led to the "increase of funds for the promotion of Madeira as a destination" in the Regional Budget proposal presented by the island's executive.

The Investment Plan for next year is 800 million Euros.

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Carlos Rodrigues, who was speaking after a meeting of representatives of the PSD parliamentary group with the director of the Association for the Promotion of Madeira (APM), noted that the Regional Government, of PSD / DCS coalition, will increase the amount earmarked for promotion, allocating to APM 13 million Euros.

He said that a further nine million were planned for "charges related to events to be held next year, which total 22 million Euros for tourism".

He stressed that "all the movements that have taken place have been of very slight growth".

For this reason, he added, Madeira is experiencing "a very complicated situation at all levels of the regional economy, both in tourism-related activities as such and all those associated with it".

He argued that the effort to be made next year must be mainly "directed towards promotion, with the recovery of the sector as an expectation".

But, he said, the forecasts indicate that "it will eventually happen from the first quarter" of 2021.

The PSD/Madeira parliamentarian stressed that the aim of investment was to encourage "the issuing markets to react positively and that the situation of a pandemic, if kept under control, would allow for a recovery of the sector and, consequently, a recovery of the economy of Madeira".