Chilean President said social plans in Argentina “distort the economy”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, spoke about Argentina and recommended not to follow in its footsteps in terms of subsidies. In an interview with Radio Cooperativa, he said that his government is working on a package of measures within the framework of the “Chile Apoya” plan to promote the reactivation of the economy. And he gave the Argentine case as an example.

“We have to be precise; we cannot put everything in the same bag. I believe that when state aid is chronic, as it has happened in some brother countries, it distorts the economy; and hurts the population even more,” he began.

And he continued: “I recently went to our brother country, Argentina, where the salaries of the regulated sector had risen by 74% last month. You will say: ‘That’s great!’. But inflation is 70%, and the level of informality is close to two-thirds. So, if we are not responsible today, where universal benefits were given, retirement policies were carried out, but there is a moment when we have to stop that”.

Then he affirmed: “What we have to do is to strengthen employment, aim at structural changes in the development model, we have to support the middle class, and those who need it most, through, for example, the protected basic food basket, or through specific subsidies focused on the productive sectors that have been left behind, such as the world of tourism. Improving, as we were discussing with the SMEs, laws such as the 30-day payment or insolvency laws, so that SMEs can have greater participation in the market”.

“Did you know that SMEs have only a 13% market share when they represent close to 50% of employment in Chile?” he asked; to which he continued: “Here, there are structural measures to be taken while we have a short term agenda such as the minimum wage, protected basic food basket, containment of fuel prices? Don’t tell me that nothing is being done,” he concluded.

In another order, Boric, who has been living one of the most difficult political moments since he took office two months ago, traveled on May 4 to his native region of Magallanes in his second official trip to the interior of the country after the visit he made to the north in April.

Boric traveled to a “friendly territory”, which he represented during two periods as national deputy and where he obtained more than 60% of the votes in the December ballotage, in which he defeated José Antonio Kast.

Several polls point to a sharp drop in the approval of the young head of state, who has hardly been given time to settle in La Moneda and who has had, as he said, a “turbulent” take-off in the first weeks, marked by mistakes of Ministry figures and mobilizations of the transport union.

To the uncertainty of a part of the population have been added the noise and controversy surrounding the Constituent Convention to write a new Magna Carta -one of the milestones of his mandate- and the negative trend of the world economy, dragged by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rise of inflation after years of the pandemic, which has spurred the impatience of many sectors.

With information from Infobae