The Portugal News reported on the 23rd January 2010 that foreign residents are expected to number 200,000 by 2030.

“Attracted to the region by the sunshine, beautiful beaches and better job opportunities, more foreign immigrants are expected to settle in the Algarve over the next 20 years, when the total amount of ex-pats, are expected to reach 200,000.”

Russell and Gary Francis were attracted there in 2005 founding Boatshed Algarve, “We were naturally attracted by the weather and excellent marine services, but also motivated by the lack of Marine Brokerage organisation providing world class service”.

A future demographic chart created by Eurostat has predicted that in 2030 the Algarve will have around 564,000 inhabitants, more than a third of whom will be foreign residents.

Current population is 443,000 people with an Ex-pat community of 72,000. As a result of the increase, one in every three Algarve inhabitants will be foreign.

Today, the biggest foreign communities in the Algarve are the Brazilian community (12,000 residents), the British (10,000 residents) and the Ukrainian community (also 10,000 residents).

As well as the foreign communities there are also an estimated 33,000 Portuguese residents in the Algarve who are originally from other parts of Portugal.

Boatshed Algarve have been here for five years, in the early days its fair to say that the ex-pat community was the initial target market, this has changed quite dramatically during the last two year’s with many more boat and yacht sales for and to Portuguese Nationals.

The expected growth in population by 13.4 percent over the next two decades will require further investment in services all round and greater opportunities for employment, with the Algarve becoming more and more a residential oasis, particularly for mature Northern Europeans migrating as residents, rather than simply seasonal visitors.

Development in Leisure and Tourism Industries has been much publicised, in particular Golf and Marine projects, this continues with new marinas under construction and the opening of a Formula 1 grade motor racing circuit, however, perhaps less well known, infrastructure has also been greatly improved during the last five years with motorway links, new trunk roads together with running and cycle paths, which now extend the length of the Algarve Coast.

The Lisbon-Madrid bullet train network is expected to be completed in 2013, with the Lisbon-Oporto and Oporto-Vigo lines coming into operation in 2015. The network which will include links between the Algarve and Southern Spain is expected to cost 8.9 billion euros.

Boatshed Algarve are currently based in the central Algarve regions of Vilamoura and Albufeira, during the next five years the plan is to expand to all major marinas in anticipation of the increased demand.