“After many years in which Porto lost a lot of population, what we see is that, when we compare 2023 with 2013, the population of Porto increased by more than 6%”, the mayor, Rui Moreira, told Lusa.

The data is contained in a document presented during the Municipal Economic Council held on 11 September and which, among other topics, looked at demographics based on data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) and Eurostat.

In 2023, Porto had 248,769 residents, 6.11% more than in 2013, when it had 234,453 residents.

Of the 248,769 residents, 62% were between 14 and 65 years old, 26% were 65 or over and 12% were up to 14 years old.

“Today, the city of Porto is recovering its population to a large extent because there are migratory flows that are surpassing the natural balance of ageing”, he highlighted.

Although the data on the foreign population residing in Porto does not coincide with the same period under analysis, it shows that, between 2012 and 2022, there was a growth of 210.8%.

More detailed data also indicate that in 2022, Porto had 23,312 foreign residents, 23.1% more than in 2021, when it had 18,936 immigrants.

The population from Mozambique (53.1%), India (42.5%), Angola (32.5%), Brazil (27.3%) and Italy (11.7%) were the ones that grew the most between 2021 and 2022 in Porto.

“We have to be able to understand that if Porto is today a more cosmopolitan city, it has to treat these people as if they were Porto residents. They are people who are part of the economic and social fabric of the city, and are equal to us from the moment they start living here”, considered Rui Moreira.

In addition to the 248,769 residents, the data also reveals that, in 2023, 140,800 people travelled to Porto daily to work or study.

These 140,800 people are added to the approximately 14,000 tourists that the city welcomes every day.

"This data somehow refutes some of the paradigms that have been pointed out about the city", argued Rui Moreira, giving as an example "some of the catastrophic views" about tourism.

"There has been an overvaluation of the role and presence of tourists, which is true that they are very large in certain areas of the city, but we realize that compared to the people who come to Porto every day, they represent only 10% and, therefore, we have to understand that the city's future policies must be based on objective numbers", he stated.

While on the one hand, Rui Moreira considered that Porto, the Metropolitan Area and the Government should "continue to act and invest in mobility policies", on the other, he argued that the city should "try to avoid the excessive concentration of tourists" in certain areas.

“We need to achieve an organised dispersion phenomenon that will ensure that tourists continue to visit the city because they represent an added value for local businesses. What we cannot have is a hyper-concentration of tourism,” he added.

As for the foreign population, the independent mayor, who is finishing his third and final term next year, believes that Porto must have “a careful policy” of welcoming and integrating them.

“The extremist speeches of right-wing and left-wing forces contribute to a phenomenon of rejection, which whoever comes here [to the mayor’s office] will certainly have to counter,” he argued.