APEMIP SEMINAR - 22nd AUGUST, 2008 - AUDITÓRIO MUNICIPAL DE LAGOA

This Seminar APEMIP held in Lagoa could have been so much better...

Had it not suffered from what is a cultural thing among us: Late, Later, Latest:

So late were we that we had to list to the sponsor (UCI) speak to us and sell their products;

Other "latenesses", due to lack of participation by the audience, drove us to listen to long and boring discourses by both Sérgio Martins and Eduardo Macedo – Presidents,
respectively of the Direcção Regional Sul and of Direcção Nacional of APEMIP;

It was useful and interessantly to retain info in Portuguese (Where were the translators?!?) from the other speakers:

- António Figueiredo from the "Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado" on ending of the requirement for deeds and methods over in the Simplex;
- Alexandre Fernandes - Director Geral da ADENE - who also defined the desired impact of the Energy Certification of Buildings.

At long last, after a long journey, we were able to hear Eng.º Ponce de Leão - Presidente do InCI - who stated (And i quote) that "real estate mediation companies and their Association" had reached their maturity and one could foresee the time when self-regulation of this activity would be possible...

I confess this scares me as we lack 2 important factors in this equation:

1 - The lack of a coherent academic and training structure that can support such a "dream";

2 - The difficulty foreigners (who are nothing more than Europeans with full rights) find in unifying themselves in a common platform which can dialogue and be uniform and justified.

Without these 2 elements, made available to those professionals that have come to stay and help build Algarve's PIB (And also Portugal's), I cannot see good omens in these words spoken at the Seminar.

Urgent action is needed.

Your Colleague,

Daniel Foster da Silva

Importance of watching TV

Yes, it is true.

Watching channel 2's (RTP 2 - portuguese official channels) news reel at 10 pm is a must.

It's concise and to the point, a 30 min overview from Portugal's best.

Why?

Because language learning is all about getting into the mindframe which is behind speech and written language.

the same applies to APEMIP's Seminars: Boring, sometimes enlightened, they give you 1 credit a piece, but allow you dive into the cultural aspects which make up the Portuguese Real Estate Industry.