Chile aims to boost economy with infrastructure, exports

Analysts predict rebound after low first quarter growth.


Chile is launching the country’s first international e-commerce platform, ChileB2B, which was created to increase the “visibility” of small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in efforts to expand the country’s global export market.

“We are here today to announce a major milestone in the modernization of our international trade policy, with which we will begin to change the way in which we have been carrying out exports in Chile,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Teodoro Ribera, who launched the initiative. The system will “allow exporters from throughout Chile to connect with importers around the world” through the platform, Ribera added.

More than 700 Chilean exporters and 300 importers began using the platform during the test phase. The platform will become a public service July 1 and will "support Chilean innovation and enterprise,” according to a news release announcing the launch.

The Chilean government is also working to accelerate a $4 billion infrastructure program in response to a slow-growing economy in the first quarter of 2019. According to an online report by Reuters, the initiative will focus on investments in public infrastructure projects, including highways and airports.

“It’s a powerful plan of economic reactivation, which will allow us to strengthen our country’s capacity to grow, to create jobs and to improve wages,” Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera said.

In the first quarter of 2019, Chile’s economy grew 1.6 percent despite market expectations of 1.8 percent and after expanding 3.6 percent in the last quarter of 2018. It was the weakest growth rate in nearly two years, according to Trading Economics.

Analysts attribute the slow growth rate to a 1.8 percent drop in exports, especially in copper shipments, which make up 50 percent of Chile’s export market. Copper production at Chile’s top mining companies, including Codelco, also dropped because of heavy rain in the first part of the year, Reuters says in another online report.

Chile’s economy currently has the potential to grow and benefit from a flood of immigrants coming into the country from Venezuela, which is facing a financial and economic crisis. The 4 million Venezuelans seeking refuge across South America led Chile’s central bank to cut interest rates. A chief economist at Goldman Sachs told Bloomberg there’s potential to grow the economy as well as the country’s labor market.

Despite the slow economic growth at the start of the year, policymakers are also expressing optimism of international investments, as well as a more diverse trading environment developing in Chile. Analysts forecast a 2.5 percent growth this quarter.

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