Portuguese PM denies poverty on rise

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho on Saturday rebutted the saying that poverty was on the rise in the country.

The statistics released this week by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) only reflect "what we have been through and not what we are living today," Passos Coelho said in Fatima, Santarem, 69 km north of Lisbon, according to Portuguese Lusa News Agency.

"It reflects the circumstances we lived in 2013, which was perhaps the most difficult year reflecting the very hard measures implemented throughout 2012," he added.

According to the INE, 19.5 percent of people in Portugal lived under the 411-euro per month poverty line in 2013.

The INE said the situation had worsened compared with the previous year when 18.7 percent of the Portuguese population lived under the poverty line.

Child poverty rose from 24.4 percent in 2012 to 25.6 percent in 2013.

Portugal signed a 78-billion-euro bailout program in 2011 with the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank and has had to implement harsh austerity measures to put the country's growth back on track.

Portugal saw its economy start to grow for the first time last year since the bailout program. Endi