Portugal Has Plenty of Tourists. Now It Wants Data Centers
Investment around the town of Sines totals almost 5% of GDP as the country seeks to retool its economy for the 21st century.
The Statue of Vasco da Gama overlooking the harbor in Sines.
Photographer: Ana Paganini for Bloomberg BusinessweekJust outside the Portuguese port of Sines, there’s an old refinery and a disused power plant, relics of a push 50 years ago to diversify away from agriculture. That effort never amounted to much, but north of town you’ll find what has become the most important pillar of the country’s economy: Europe’s longest uninterrupted beach—a 40-mile ribbon of white sand that beckons to sunseekers and surfers.
These days, Portugal’s government is betting the city can give the national economy a 21st century makeover. That’s because that same coast, a two-hour drive south of Lisbon, is the landing site of undersea cables linking Europe to Brazil and Africa, and Google will soon open a line to South Carolina. The aim is to provide tech services that reach across Europe and shed the country’s reliance on tourism, which accounts for almost a quarter of gross domestic product. In March, a company called Start Campus inaugurated the first building of an €8.5 billion ($9.9 billion) data center that will ultimately be among Europe’s largest. In May, CALB Group Co., the world’s No. 4 battery maker, broke ground on a €2 billion factory. And PSA, the Singapore company that handles containers at the town’s deepwater terminal, is doubling capacity.