Latin American countries must maintain prudent fiscal policies to strengthen their economies in the current world context of uncertainty, The Deputy Director Manager of the International Monetary Fund, Nigel Clarke, told Reuters.
Clarke will launch on Friday in Paraguay a regional FMI training program for South America and Mexico to support countries in the data update and training of professionals.
The program, which will work at the Institute of the Central Bank of Paraguay, will begin with eight courses that will be taught throughout the next 12 months and the first will be on macroeconomic and fiscal policies.
“It is not time to change politics or abandoning frameworks,” Clarke said in a written response about how countries in the region can deal with eventual pressure on spending.
Clarke said that the public finances of the Latin American countries resisted the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic better than expected and that governments managed to withdraw support policies deployed during the health emergency period.
However, countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, have returned to debt levels similar to those observed at the peak of the pandemic in 2020 and currently face the risk of more volatile financial conditions in the United States.
“Our message for Latin America and the Caribbean countries is that they continue to implement the necessary structural reforms and strengthen the resilience of their economies,” said Clarke.
“The region has great potential to benefit from greater intra -regional integration (…) reducing commercial barriers, remeding the infrastructure gaps and establishing regulatory and tax frameworks that attract investment”he added.
