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Portugal Transportation and Communications
Portugal's transportation system in the late 1980s
comprised
73,660 kilometers of roads, of which 61,000 kilometers
were
paved; a railroad network of 3,630 kilometers; and 820
kilometers
of navigable inland waterways. Lisbon, on the Rio Tejo
estuary,
and the two other major ports at Leixões, near Porto, and
Sines
were fully equipped and had adequate warehousing
facilities.
Lisbon's Portela Airport was a major European air terminal
and
transit point for some eighteen airlines. Porto and the
Algarve,
as well as the Azores and Madeira islands, were also
served by
international airports. Transportes Aéreos Portugueses
(TAP), the
national airline, operated flights within the country and
also
served major European cities and several large cities in
the
United States, South America, and Africa
(see
fig. 9).
Much of Portugal's transportation infrastructure--the
nationalized railroad, airline, merchant fleet, and
trucking and
bus lines--was to be restructured and/or privatized in the
early
1990s. For example, Caminhos de Ferro Portuguese (CP), the
national railroad, approved a 1988 plan that called for a
US$1.5
billion investment to modernize the rail system by 1994.
The plan
included high-speed "super trains" to connect Portugal's
major
cities and Lisbon to Madrid. In addition, in the second
half of
the 1980s the EC began to give substantial assistance for
improving the transportation infrastructure.
Portugal was following an ambitious program to
modernize its
communications system. The Assembly of the Republic
approved in
July 1989 the deregulation/liberalization of some
telecommunications activities, which would allow private
firms to
operate complementary services, such as cellular phones,
videotex, and highly value-added services such as fax,
audiotex,
and voicemail. Radio and television were also opening to
private
participation, and reception of satellite television was
expanding rapidly.
Data as of January 1993
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