RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, appealed this Friday (8) to the “enormous tranquility” of his country during a talk in Punta del Este as a place to attract both investors and residents.
“In a world so crazy, so uncertain, with the aggravating factor of the pandemic, Uruguay is distinguished not by this government, but by those who passed a couple of hundred years ago and those who will come after,” he said about the democratic and economic stability of the country, one of the features that distinguish it at the international level.
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Lacalle Pou was speaking at the opening of the America Business Forum (ABF), a forum of Latin American leaders held at the Punta del Este Convention Center, and the first major event hosted by the country since the declaration of a health emergency on March 13, 2020.
The president spoke to the press afterward and acknowledged that the government is studying “the consequences of repealing the decree and setting aside the sanitary emergency”. However, he clarified, he does not want to take any risks.
“Both the Ministry of Public Health and other ministries have certain tools thanks to it. We do not want to rush (to repeal it),” he declared.
During his presentation at the opening of the event, Lacalle Pou defended his decision “to appeal to the social responsibility of Uruguayans” in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic and insisted that he would “do the same” again in the face of the mandatory quarantines or curfews established in other countries.
The president insisted that Uruguay “has open arms for families from all over the world” to settle and “spend money, invest”. At the same time, he stressed his “obsession” for the country to “play in a big field” about occupying a prominent place in world markets.
“I don’t know if (Uruguay) has a role in Latin America, it has a role in the international organizations in which it is, and it has a role in Mercosur, and to our partners, we say: ‘we are going to open up to the world, we are the granary of the world, we are food producers'”, he added.
Lacalle Pou, who spoke at the ABF in February 2020, still as president-elect, was inaugurated head of state on March 1 of that year as leader of a coalition of five parties: Nacional (PN, center-right), Colorado (PC, center-right), De la Gente (PG, right), Independiente (PI, center-left) and Cabildo Abierto (CA, right).
The sixth edition of the ABF includes the presence of personalities from the world of sports, such as former Argentine soccer player Juan Sebastián Verón and Guillermo Coppopa, former manager of the late soccer star Diego Armando Maradona; from the economy, such as Jacobo Singer, president of the first Uruguayan unicorn, dLocal; and show business, such as Susana Giménez.