Additionally, the general European economic growth, including the Portuguese one, came to an end after the oil price shock of 1973. That shock consisted in a significant increase of energy prices as a result of occurring conflicts in the Middle East. The result was stagflation, a combination of economic growth stagnation and inflation. Heavy industry came to an abrupt halt. All sectors of the economy, including manufacturing, mining, chemical, defence, finance, agriculture, and fishing, collapsed. Portugal quickly went from the country with the highest growth rate in Western Europe to the lowest, and experienced several years of negative growth. This was amplified by the mass emigration of skilled workers and entrepreneurs (among them were António Champalimaud and José Manuel de Mello) due to communism-inspired political intimidation in the context of the political turnoil that marked the country from mid-1974 to late 1975, along with economic stagnation.