After almost 50 years of virtual standstill during the Salazar dictatorship, Portugal went through a process of extremely fast modernisation after the 1974 Revolution. One of the country’s most prominent political analysts put it like this: “Within a period of 30 years, Portugal got rid of a dictator, lost its colonies, lost its currency and became a part of Europe”.

The joining of the then EEC in 1986 was a major step forward, of course, especially with all the EU funding that began pouring in. A major breakthrough for Lisbon, however, came with Expo’98—not only because the event turned out to be well-organised and very successful, but mainly because of what was done with the site afterwards.

The Portuguese had learned from Expo’92 held in Seville, Spain, and in their planning of the event had made sure that they would not be left with a series of unusable 'white elephants’ after the Fair. That is why a formerly run-down, polluted area in East Lisbon, with a few obsolete oil refineries and an open-air waste dump, is now a modern and booming part of town. “It is the most beautiful part of Lisbon,” as one enthusiastic hotel executive put it.

More than half of Portugal’s GDP is being produced in the greater Lisbon area (1999 figures). Main industries in the Portuguese capital are tourism, followed by finance, insurance, consulting and telecommunications. Most banks, large insurance companies and major financial services are located in the centre of Lisbon. Other companies, like Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Proctor & Gamble, have moved out of the city to one of the state-of-the-art office parks in the nearby Oeiras area, such as Quinta da Fonte, Tagus Park and Lagoas Park.

Presently the most popular place for establishing new businesses, however, is the area around the former Expo’98 site, now called Parque das Nações (Park of Nations). It’s new and exciting, has state-of-the-art infrastructure such as a wi-fi network, is wonderfully located on a 5kms stretch along the Tejo river and has all kinds of facilities close at hand. There’s public transport, the airport, hotels, restaurants and bars, a shopping centre, plenty of space to walk, a bowling hall and the city’s first casino will be opening there some time this year. The drawback is that rents here have become higher than those in the Oeiras area. Among the growing number of companies that have moved their offices to Parque das Nações are IBM, Vodafone, Sony, EMI and Ford.