The textile and clothing, furniture, automobile and real estate sectors reported double-digit declines in activity in March due to the Covid-19 crisis and anticipate a 50 percent hit for the month of April, according to the Portuguese Textile and Clothing Association (ATP). Its discouragement extends to the furniture industry, where two-thirds of the companies in the sector expect to be laying off workers and 70 percent anticipate to bill less than 50 percent of what they did last year. As for the automobile sector, production fell 46.1 percent in March y-o-y. The Automobile Association of Portugal (ACAP) found that producers experienced major supply chain disruptions of parts and labor, leading inevitably to the closure of production plants beginning at the end of March.
