News Highlights

Turkish Airlines resumes the Istanbul-Porto route on 29th March, with four weekly flights. The route had been suspended in the beginning of the pandemic.

The FITEI - International Iberian Theatre Festival, is back from 1st to 16th May, as announced by the organisation to Lusa. The main novelty is that the festival will take to both the digital and the in-person format. Theatres, cinemas and concert hall are to reopen on 19th April.

The Mayors Summit Against Anti-Semitism is scheduled for 16th March and it gathers mayors from all parts of the world, from Porto to Athens, and from Pittsburgh to Frankfurt, in Germany, the online event organiser, jointly with the Combat Anti-Semitism organisation.

There is a host service in place, in Porto, for those children with no support background in the household, as their parents are essential workers or cannot work from home. Keeping the quality of learning and teaching, even during the school remote system in place, owing to the pandemic, is a major priority of the Municipality of Porto. Currently, over 400 first graders benefit form a daily meal service; also, the educational programmes have been adjusted and adapted to the current needs.

The President of the Republic came back to Porto, as he had done five years before, to mark his inauguration ceremony. After being sworn in in Lisbon, he headed to Porto for an ecumenical ceremony, where he was welcomed by the Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira. This is the President’s second mandate and the ceremony was attended by representatives of several religious beliefs. “I am filled with pride, because Porto is a city of tolerance”, affirmed Rui Moreira.

Payment cmpany euPago is to invest two million euros in a venue that will work as a hub of innovative ideas in the fintech area. This place will be located near Constituição and will accommodate about 20 startups, this year alone.

Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport is listed a Best European Airport as regards Covid-19 response, based on the views of customers in 2020, by Airports Council International (ACI) that revealed this year’s Airport Service Quality awards.

Porto received the highest rating for its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while building resilience to the impacts of climate change. Alongside other members of the A List regarding environmental action, which features 88 cities worldwide, Porto is setting an example as a resilient, engaged city that safeguards its citizens, its economy and, ultimately, the planet. The CDP Europe Awards 2021 were held in an online format on 2nd March, under the motto #BuildForwardBetter.

Porto City Hall is preparing a cooperation agreement with both taxi shuttles in town to transport the elderly to the vaccination centres, namely the Health Centres in the Western and Eastern part of the city. Rui Moreira announced the news on 22nd February, during the Municipal Executive meeting.

Porto was shortlisted among the 13 European cities to produce unicorns, in the coming years, according to the findings of the Startup Cities Alliance (SCALE) report. The Invicta is pinpointed By the SCALE report as one of the cities in Europe where unicorns are building up; that is, a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion.