MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

ECLAC calls for broader financing for Latin American countries

Latin American countries are going through “complex” macroeconomic and financial conditions, ECLAC said

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Tuesday said it considered that the current level of indebtedness in Latin America requires a transformation of the international financial architecture to offer countries other alternatives to attain “inclusive and sustainable” development.

During the XXXV Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy in Santiago, Chile, ECLAC Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs insisted that the restrictions to growth and development stemming from public debt and the “complex” macroeconomic and financial conditions call for the broadening of the financing instruments available since Latin American countries are paying higher interest and therefore allocating more public resources to ensure debt sustainability, which translates into reductions in public investment and social spending, thus generating “a vicious circle.”

The ECLAC report also underlines the need to reduce the costs of indebtedness, creating a global financial safety net and moving towards a new institutional framework for sovereign debt restructuring.

At the Santiago event, the proposal for a regional tax cooperation platform promoted by Colombia, Chile, and Brazil was presented, with the support of ECLAC as the Technical Secretariat. This platform seeks to promote inclusive, equitable, and sustainable global taxation.

The Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2023 and the report Tax Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023, which analyze tax policy in the region and the dynamics of taxation, were also presented.

The seminar includes the participation of organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as well as specialists and non-governmental organizations. The event is sponsored by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).