After yesterday the mayor of Recoleta, Daniel Jadue, criticized the government for its rejection of the fifth withdrawal of pension funds, pointing out that it is unpresentable that he has changed his position on the subject, to which the Minister of Finance, Mario Marcel, limited himself to pointing out that “I do not comment on Mayor Jadue’s statements”, the controversy has continued to rise.
In reference to the position in the presidency of the Central Bank, which Marcel resigned to take on the Treasury, Jadue maintained on the TVN program Without Makeup, that “he was the president of the Central Bank appointed by Sebastián Piñera, what two weeks ago was the worst government in history. The one who put in the Central Bank to protect the neoliberal policy as president “,
© Sebastian Beltran Gaete
PHOTO: SEBASTIAN BELTRAN GAETE/AGENCIAUNO
Given this, Marcel responded this Thursday that “It seems to me that there is a data error, because as far as I remember, President Bachelet appointed me as Central Bank advisor, and President Bachelet herself appointed me President of the Central Bank, so I would ask her to correct that data that It’s a little wrong.”
Marcel made these statements to journalists following participating in the Latam Focus 2022 seminar, organized by BTG Pactual.
In addition, the current Secretary of State once more ruled out a possible fifth withdrawal of pension funds, reaffirming the position that the government has had and pointed out that the same conditions that triggered the previous records are not present.
“We have a new government with respect to the government that the country had in previous withdrawals, and that largely triggered the withdrawals at the time,” he said.
And secondly, he added “the government has been quite clear regarding its opinion on the matter, and President Boric has said that a crisis should never once more be resolved at the expense of workers’ pension funds. So, I think that President Boric, the ministers of the economic area, the various government authorities that have been referred to have been quite consistent in this matter”.
Regarding the rise in fuel prices, he indicated that all possible efforts will be made so that the rise hits the pockets of Chileans to a lesser extent.
Uncertainty in the markets
Previously, in the framework of his presentation, Marcel pointed out that the different measures of financial indicators such as the price of the dollar, long-term interest rates and the behavior of the stock market have tended to moderate their volatility to the extent that uncertainties have been cleared up and stated that, although the constituent process generates a new source of uncertainty, it is limited in time.
“What is interesting to highlight from all these indicators is that it has tended, as they have been clearing up, in the first place, the electoral processes, the makeup of the government, the government’s agenda, these perceptions of risk,” Marcel said.
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PHOTO: SEBASTIAN BELTRAN GAETE/AGENCIAUNO
He also stated that “In the case of the Constitutional Convention, of course it is a source of uncertainty, that happened in any country where a new constitution was being drafted, but, at the same time, we know that this has a certain time horizon, this is not an unlimited process, it will end in a few months”.
In this regard, he recalled that the new constitution proposal will not necessarily correspond to the initiatives that are being presented in the commissions, nor those that are approved in the commissions, but that it will be what is finally approved in plenary with the requirement two-thirds of the votes.
In this sense, he cited as an example the case of the proposals regarding the role of the Central Bank. “I think it is interesting for this public to remember that when the issue of a new constitution was first raised, like in November 2019, at the beginning there was a lot of concern regarding what was going to happen with the Central Bank regulations and, the truth, it is that the work of the convention has actually been concentrating on the most complex knots of our institutional framework”.
Among them he mentioned the political system, the powers of the State, the internal structure of the government and the initiatives of the government in the legislature. “That is the heart of a constitution, in fact, I was just seeing the latest that is emerging in proposals for the Central Bank and they are quite moderate, so the balance of the issues that, initially, for those who followed the economy , was very concentrated in the Central Bank, they have been concentrating more towards these more in-depth definitions”, he asserted.
Therefore, he emphasized that “We still have several iterations that this process has to go through and the good thing is that this process has a deadline, therefore, the uncertainty that may come from the constitutional process also has a time limit.”
On another topic, Marcel reiterated that the government’s priorities in the first stage are the implementation of an inclusive growth agenda, which will be announced in the coming days, the tax reform and the pension reform, for which work will be carried out. preliminary dialogue that is expected to begin in both cases in regarding two weeks with a view to reaching a social pact on both matters.