The high cost of living faced by large segments of the population in Latin America poses challenges for most Latin American countries, where controlling inflation is a priority to stabilize the economy, as various heads of Treasury portfolios agreed on Wednesday.
In an open discussion held this afternoon in the framework of the fall meetings of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington DC, the heads of the economy and finance portfolios delved into “fiscal policy”.
For the Secretary of the Treasury of Mexico, Rogelio Ramírez de la O, it is a priority to control inflation, although he considers that it is “imported” and that one of the strategies of the Mexican government is to reverse this factor with the supply of basic products that have made prices more expensive. basic basket and the cost of living in general.
Ramírez de la O said that for the first time the economy has been opened to import food products exempt from tariffs, which also promotes the cultivation of corn and other foods.
“Our main concern today is inflation and in the fight against inflation we are betting, first on stabilizing the rate, today we have it at 8.7%, we have invested 1.5 percentage points of GDP in stabilizing the price of gasoline, this it pays a lot and inspires us to invite the private sector to do the same in food”, commented the head of the Treasury.
For the Minister of Economy and Finance of Uruguay, Azucena Arbeleche, her country, like the rest of Latin American countries, is facing a phenomenon that generates pressure in different ways that “added to the monetary policy of developed countries, it leads us to a situation that we are facing infringement challenges.
For now –he explained that- from the local institutions. as the central bank of his country is committed to a contractionary monetary policy, and on the other hand he has sought to make the process less traumatic for the most dispossessed citizens, although this means reorganizing public finances.
“From the Ministry of Economy, specific support had to be given back and focused on the most vulnerable sectors in order to maintain the purchasing power of these people, with direct transfers in the most unprotected sectors,” said Minister Arbeleche.
For the head of the Treasury of Colombia, José Antonio Ocampo, the wave of inflation is pushing his country and, without a doubt, other nations in the region towards a progressive loss of real value of wageswhich aggravates the domestic situation of families.
For Ocampo, the debates go along two lines if it is an inflation caused by supply and demand and he is inclined towards a supply problem, but it works in two different directions where local conditions and the “complex negative international situation” influence.
Minister Ocampo assures that the incentives to boost local food production, find formulas to stabilize food prices that are most affecting inflation, is a priority, added to fertilizers and fuels.
“Because of the magnitude of inflation, problems of deflation are beginning to develop, of salary prices, which is also a problem of supply, it is an inflation that is very difficult to cure with monetary policy,” Minister Ocampo pointed out.
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