Economy:
According to figures published by the European Union, the service sector is the most important sector in Lisbon's economy employing approximately four fifths of the workforce. Some of the principle industries in this sector include tourism, insurance, consulting and telecommunications. Finance is also important to the city's economy and most of the major financial services companies and banks operating in Portugal have a presence in the city. These include several prominent multinationals such as, Arthur Anderson, Barclays Bank and KPMG.

Local Infrastructure:
Lisbon international airport is located 7 kilometres from the centre of Lisbon at Portela de Sacav?m and offers scheduled flights to and from most major European destinations as well as numerous destinations world-wide. It is Portugal's busiest airport and in 2000 handled nearly 9.4 million passengers, a rise of approximately 8.4 per cent on 1999. In 1998 the airport recorded the highest passenger growth rate in the world. Such rapid increases in passenger numbers have necessitated modernisation and expansion measures to be implemented and the airport is scheduled to handle its maximum capacity, of 20 million passengers a year, sometime between 2004 and 2012. Plans are also underway for the construction of a new airport in the Ota district, 45 kilometres to the north of Lisbon, which is due for completion by about 2010.

Lisbon is also the country's largest sea port and has facilities to deal with a wide variety of commodities including cars, containers, dry and liquid bulks, general cargo, grain, iron ore, project cargoes, fruit and roll on roll off traffic. In 2002, the port handled over 12 million tonnes of cargo, an increase of more than 5 per cent on the previous year. The port provides excellent connections with numerous destinations throughout the world including Australia and New Zealand, North and South America, West Africa, the Middle East and the Far East.

The city of Lisbon and the surrounding area has seen dramatic improvements to its transport infrastructure in recent years including the extension of the underground, the construction of the new Vasco Da Gama bridge across the Tagus, a new railway link between both margins of the Tagus and the construction of a network of peripheral motorways network. Such work has not only improved the transport situation in the city itself, in terms of access and mobility, but has also helped to reduce congestion by enabling traffic in the North-South axis to avoid the city centre.

Local Workforce:
As is the case in the rest of the country, workers in Lisbon are regarded as reliable and hard working. According to a report from the Economic Research and Forecasting Department of the Ministry of Finance, 85 per cent of companies surveyed in Lisbon considered their working climate to be excellent or good.

Standard of Living:
Portugal offers a good quality of life with a pleasant climate and one the lowest registered crime rates of OECD countries. In the quality of life report published by Mercer Human Resource Consulting in 2002, Lisbon was positioned 13th in the EU and 57th in the world, scoring a total of 97.5 points. The city of Zurich, which was placed first scored a total of 106.5 points. The report was based on the evaluation of 39 criteria such as political, social, economic and environmental factors as well as personal safety, health, education, transport and several other public services. In terms of cleanliness, based on air pollution levels and the efficiency of waste disposal and sewage systems, Lisbon is positioned 11th in the EU, ahead of Paris, Rome, London and Athens, and 73rd in the world.

Business Costs:
A survey of office occupancy costs in the top 61 global markets shows that Lisbon offers very competitive rates. The survey, conducted by Grubb & Ellis and Knight Frank, showed that average occupancy costs in Lisbon were $24.94 per square foot per annum in the 4th quarter of 2001, compared to $52.18in Dublin, $69.31in Paris and $149.04 in London.