The Institute concluded that private sector investment would fall by a nominal 2.2 percent in 2015 against 1 percent growth in 2014 with this latter figure standing against a forecast of 2.4 percent.
The survey also found that the main draw on private investment over the last two years was a deterioration in the outlook for sales, hence undermining the respective justification for any investment.
In terms of the figures reported for 2014, it was the heavyweight corporations that did the most to put some life back into the economy with firms employing over 500 persons contributing with a 14 percent increase in investment.
In contrast, the smaller market players, companies employing less than 50 persons cut back on investment with 2014 seeing their total investment slide by 12.6 percent.
Meanwhile, this one percent rise in investment was attributed to increases in financing for construction and equipment acquisition projects, up 2.5 percent and 1.9 percent respectively, whilst the ‘other investments’ category fell back by 2.4 percent.
Furthermore, self-financing such investment remains the case for the majority of projects, accounting for 69.1 percent of investment in 2014 and forecast to be 69.7 percent in 2015.
The report came out on the same day that the authorities released details about investment subsidies within the scope of European Union funding for the Portugal 2020 programme.
According to Lusa News Agency, projects eligible may claim up to 75 percent of their investment costs under this programme, with a minimum floor of 35 percent to funding.
Whilst still under definition, and in any case subject to case by case evaluation, the programme provides a maximum of 50 percent funding for professional training that rises by 10 percent and 20 percent when dealing with medium, small and micro companies respectively.
Much of the funding will depend on the results of the respective projects with the funding due to be reimbursed by the state when failing to meet targets whilst successful projects would correspondingly have to return a lesser proportion of the amount originally received.