Yesterday, the Government of the Azores approved a resolution extending the validity of the transitional financial support for the payment of housing loan installments (CREDITHAB) until December 31, 2024.
The Government of the Azores considers that “in the face of a generalized and persistent rise in interest rates”, which began at the end of 2022, the Regional Government approved, in February 2023, a complementary line of support to subsidize interest on housing loans called CREDITHAB, which aims to “complement national measures that promote flexibility and renegotiation of contractual conditions, in the case of loans where there is a significant effort rate, under the terms set out in regulations”.
This measure was amended in May and October 2023, “extending its scope and simplifying the requirements for access to support.”
Given the exceptional and transitional nature of the economic situation, the measure was set to run until 2023, without prejudice to the possibility of extending it for one year, and subject to the budget allocation for 2024.
Since the peak of reference interest rates in October 2023, their trajectory “has been decreasing, having already fallen back to the values practiced in June last year, and it is foreseeable that they will continue to fall throughout the current year.”
“Nonetheless,” says the Azorean government, “it is expected that during the year 2024 the differential in interest rates on mortgage loans, compared to the historical average of Euribor rates, will continue to be significant, which is why today the extension of the support until December 31, 2024 is justified.”
The Council of Government approved a resolution setting the maximum limit of financial support to be granted in 2024 at 5,380,000 euros for program contracts. The aim is to award financial contributions to initiatives based on annual and multi-annual programs that are relevant to the development of tourism in the Azores.
The amount now set aside is intended for the development of program contracts to be signed with non-profit associations to carry out projects of public interest in the field of promoting the Azores as a destination or the different tourism products on the national and international markets, as well as actions aimed at studying, monitoring and following up tourism activity in the Azores and actions that contribute to the creation of a structured tourist entertainment offer.
A resolution was approved authorizing the signing of a program contract between the Region and Portos dos Açores, S.A., to promote the acquisition of two reach-stackers for the port of Horta.
The passage of the Hipólito depression through the port of Horta in January of this year resulted in “irreparable damage” to the port infrastructure’s two telescopic forklifts.
The Region’s financial contribution under the program contract is 1,300 thousand euros.
The Government approved a resolution recognizing as an action of” relevant public interest” the intervention relating to the project to expand the Figueiral Wind Farm, located in the parish and municipality of Vila do Porto, on the island of Santa Maria. EDA Renováveis, S.A. requested that the 6th phase of the Energy Development Plan for the “Expansion of the Figueiral Wind Farm” be recognized as being in the “relevant public interest” to increase the total annual power output of the farm from 1500 kW to 3600 kW. The current configuration of the wind farm, according to the government resolution, “is in the final phase of operation, as it is at the end of the useful life of the installed equipment,” so EDA Renováveis, S.A. “intends to carry out its complete remodeling, with a significant increase in installed power in the same location – the Figueiral Wind Farm – allowing it to take advantage of the existing electricity grid connection facilities and the good and well-known qualities of the wind resource, while maintaining the allocation of the same area to the same function.”

in Correio dos Açores-Natalino Viveiros, director