The official preliminary estimate is that the Portuguese economy grew by 2.7 percent last year, expanding at the fastest annual rate since 2000, Xinhua reports.

The Chinese state-run news agency says the Portuguese National Statistics Institute bases the estimate on data to hand.

The report says the Portuguese economy was 2.4 percent bigger in the fourth quarter of last year than a year earlier.

The institute thinks the annual rate of growth in gross domestic product accelerated last year from 1.2 percent in 2016 largely because of greater internal demand and investment, Xinhua says.