#chile economy

[newsinsider]

Protests in Chile against rise in metro fares

Protesters gather in Santiago to inflict improvements in the constitution and resignation of President Sebastian Pinera following social riots for increases in public transport at Baquedano Square in Santiago of Chile.

[worldnewsbreak]

Chile declares state of emergency amid riots

Santiago and other Chilean cities have been engulfed by several days of rioting as protests over an increase in public transport costs prompted President Sebastian Pinera to declare a state of emergency. Civil protests are taking place across several cities in Chile, in response to the Metro de Santiago subway's recent price hikes. The protests began in the capital, Santiago, as a coordinated fare evasion campaign by secondary school students, leading to spontaneous takeovers of the city's main train stations and open confrontations with the national police (Carabineros). On 18 October, the situation escalated as organized bands of protesters rose in rebellion across the city, seizing many terminals of the Santiago Metro network (part of Red) and disabling them with extensive infrastructure damage. The Metro network was disabled in its entirety.

On 18 October, President of Chile Sebastián Piñera announced a state of emergency, authorizing the deployment of Chilean Army forces across the main regions to enforce order and crack down on the destruction of public property, and invoked before the courts the Ley de Seguridad del Estado ("State Security Law") against dozens of detainees. A curfew was declared on 19 October in the Greater Santiago area, for the first time since 1987, at the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. Protests and riots have expanded to other cities, including Concepción, San Antonio and Valparaíso. The state of emergency was extended to the Concepción Province, all Valparaíso Region (except Easter Island and Juan Fernández Archipelago) and the cities of Antofagasta, Coquimbo, Iquique, La Serena, Rancagua and Valdivia.

[newstfionline]

Recession and political change loom for Chile

Benedict Mander in Buenos Aires, Financial Times, April 19, 2017

Chile’s longest mining strike since 1973 threatens to tip the economy into recession for the first time since the global financial crisis, increasing the possibility that the country will join the region’s political drift to the right in November’s elections.

The 43-day strike at La Escondida, which accounts for about a fifth of national copper production and almost 2 per cent of gross domestic product, caused the copper mining sector to shrink 17 per cent in February. That threatens to push mining-dependent Chile into a technical recession in the first quarter of 2017 when figures are released next month, after the economy contracted 0.4 per cent in the final quarter of 2016 from the preceding quarter.

With mining companies under pressure to improve productivity amid lower copper prices, the strike over workers’ pay--which ended last month--is expected to cost BHP Billiton, which operates the mine, some $1bn in lost production. It last week caused the state copper commission to downgrade the country’s forecast output of the metal, and the central bank to cut rates by 25 basis points to stimulate growth.

Chile’s economic slump comes as many of the developing world’s weakest economies start to recover, with neighbouring Argentina returning to growth last year, while Russia, Brazil and Nigeria are all expected to turn the corner this year.

And it takes place as the rest of Latin America has tired of leftist governments and corruption scandals in favour of business-friendly pragmatists better equipped to deal with the slower growth that has followed the end of the commodities boom.

“Undoubtedly, the economy’s poor performance favours the right,” says Guillermo Holzmann, director of Analytyka Consulting. He points out that memories are still fresh of the economic prosperity enjoyed by Chileans during the 2010-2014 presidency of Sebastián Piñera, the rightwing candidate in the forthcoming elections who is leading in the polls by a wide margin.

Economic growth has averaged less than 2 per cent since the leftist government of Michelle Bachelet took power in 2014, contributing to a collapse in the president’s approval ratings to below the lowest level of Mr Piñera. Even though at the time he was considered to be Chile’s least popular president since General Augusto Pinochet, his record on growth--an average of more than 5 per cent--has many Chileans pining for the past.

But many in Chile associate the billionaire Mr Piñera with a business and political establishment that has been discredited by scandals connected with illegal campaign financing, and demand deeper change.

In turn, the ruling coalition’s expected candidate, the independent senator and former journalist Alejandro Guillier, must try to distance himself from an unpopular government that has been tarnished by constant street protests.

[cctv-america-blog]

Chile's Ambassador to U.S. on 'Chilean miracle', growing economy

Over the last 30 years, Chile has been the fastest growing economy in Latin America. The income per capita of Chileans has nearly tripled, while the poverty rate has decreased by nearly 35 percent. (more…)

View On WordPress