(MENAFN- Qatar News Agency) Portugal has announced additional austerity measures to comply with the terms of the country's EU/IMF bailout agreement.
Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho unveiled the austerity package in a televised speech.
The plan includes reducing 30,000 civil service jobs and raising the retirement age by one year. Portugal has received a bailout of 78 billion euro, or about 102 billion dollars, from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. But it has struggled to reduce the deficit as planned.
The package follows a request from the EU for additional austerity measures. Coelho said the cutbacks will reduce the country's deficit by about 6.3 billion dollars over 3 years to bring the deficit below 3 percent of its GDP as agreed with the EU. A series of austerity measures have prevented Portugal's economy from recovering.
Unemployment has reached a record high of 18 percent. The new plan could trigger a public backlash. Â
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