Chile Ready to Step Up Social Aid Ahead of Recovery, Marcel Says
8h ago
Maria Eloisa Capurro and Matthew Malinowski, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- Chile’s government is preparing measures to boost productivity and stands ready to step up aid to the poor ahead of an economic recovery that won’t kick in before May of next year, the nation’s finance minister said in an interview.
“We are going to keep on working to get ahead of particularly tough times for families with fewer resources,” Mario Marcel, said on Friday while in Washington for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings. “We have the willingness and, within our budget, the ability to reassign and mobilize resources in that regard.”
The University of Cambridge-trained economist is trying to steer one of Latin America’s richest nations out of a sharp downturn, without fueling annual inflation that is running at more than four times the target level. This year he has slashed government spending, and recently announced a modest 4.2% increase in expenditures above inflation for next year.
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The central bank expects gross domestic product to contract by as much as 1.5% next year as both domestic demand and investment drop. Its a remarkable shift after the record-breaking, stimulus-driven surge of 11.7% in 2021.
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https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/chile-ready-to-step-up-social-aid-ahead-of-recovery-marcel-says-1.1832742