MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Privatization, “a wrong signal”

Chile's Economy Minister Jorge Rodríguez said that privatizing public utilities in the current world business climate “could be sending the wrong signal”.

"The real issue is government spending and how to finance it", remarked Mr. Rodríguez, who pointed out that selling government assets "could help pay some bills, but there's no way we can keep inflation under control or avoid hindering international confidence in the country, and reasonable interest rates".

Mr. Rodríguez said Chile has specific inflation, fiscal, monetary targets in the framework of a macroeconomic program that ensures foreign -and local-, investors' confidence in the country.

However Mr. Rodríguez also pointed out that "we can't expect Chile to grow as before at an annual rate of 7% with the current state of the world economy and a disturbing war scenario".

Mr. Rodríguez said that faced with these challenges, Chile has an aggressive foreign sales policy, opening markets such as Europe, United States and Asia, plus strong business delegations whenever the President or members of his cabinet visit overseas.

"We're exporting 4,000 different products which represent over 19 billion US dollars annually", stressed the Chilean minister.