The Portuguese government plans to create "Technological Complimentary Zones" (Zonas Livres Tecnológicas) with tailored regulatory regimes that encourage innovation and experimentation.

Unveiled on Apr 21 as part of the state's aggressive digital transition activity plan, the state's Council of Ministers pledged that the new zones will be adjusted then as to lessen the regulatory and legal burden on the developers of new and experimental technologies.

Independent Portuguese law firm Vieira de Almeida has noted that the legal framework being adopted for the free zones goes beyond existing approaches to regulatory sandboxes, which are typically disparate and set upwardly according to a sector or pre-defined surface area.

Instead, the Quango of Ministers intends to foster experimentation beyond industries:

"The Resolution notes the importance of approving a legal framework that promotes and streamlines experimentation activities in a cantankerous-sector manner in social club to take advantage of all the opportunities brought by new technologies – from artificial intelligence to blockchain, bio- and nanotechnology, 3D printing, virtual reality, robotics and the Internet of Things, and including Big Information and the 5G network."

This, Vieira de Almeida claims, represents a more than coherent and aligned approach to developing products and services, both individual and public, with feedback from various regulatory agencies.

Portugal's action program for the "construction of a digital club" will bulldoze a knowledge-based economic system to boost productivity growth, and includes key areas of focus such as regulation, digital privacy, cyber-security and defence, the data economic system, communications and infrastructure.

The authorities has unveiled educational initiatives to broaden digital inclusion for citizens and says new technologies are essential for economic development and the restructuring of the land, private sector and strategic industrial sectors.

As Cointelegraph has previously reported, Portugal has, for at present, a less onerous taxation regime for retail traders in crypto, nevertheless the country is yet to plant a designated regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies.

Issuing and trading cryptocurrencies thus remains unregulated and unsupervised by the country's cardinal bank or other financial potency.