translated from Spanish: Former minister Eyzaguirre criticizes government’s optimistic projections and accuses him of managing the economy “with mirages”

A harsh criticism was that launched the former Minister of Finance, Nicolás Eyzaguirre, to the government of Sebastián Piñera and his expectations of growth for this year, ensuring that La Moneda manages the economy “with mirages” , “as if flying like Sputnik.”
Eyzaguirre’s criticism suggests that the Executive’s growth projections argue that the Chilean economy will grow 3.2 percent this year, a figure that, he said, is even about what is stipulated by the market, which is estimated to be 2.8 per cent Hundred. “The government has just projected 3.2 percent for this year, and that the market says 2.8. People will say what do I care about 3.2 or 2.8? but it happens that we are in the seventh month of the year, so a half-point difference by now for the year, means that we are seeing two completely different realities,” he said at Radio Cooperative.
The former authority added that “the government’s forecast is consistent that the economy is about to fly like a real Sputnik, and it turns out that Standard & Poor’s tells you ‘look, not only is it not going to grow 3 this year, but the next one won’t either (…) the Government, being, in economic driving, constantly driving with a rearview mirror, is now driving with mirrors, because that Sputnik is only seen by them. So the productive agents, the workers, the people who are expecting good revenue expectations, will wonder where the pilot is.”
Different figures
The economy has been a real headache for the government of Sebastián Piñera, and the promises of the “best times” have not yet been made effective. Faced with the complicated outlook, Finance Minister Felipe Larraín adjusted his projection of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for this year to the bottom hand on Tuesday at 3.2%, while retaining the range of between 3 and 3.5% raised last March.
“We have a downward bias from the midpoint (range), which is why 3.2%,” the Minister of Finance, Felipe Larraín, said in presenting the Public Finance Report (IFP) for the second quarter of 2019 to the Joint Budget Committee of the Congress.
However, all indications are that the government’s projected outlook would be too optimistic, and that a day after Larraín readjusted the growth projection, the Central Bank published the new results of the Economic Expectations Survey (EEA). 
The results are not encouraging for the Chilean economy, as for the sixth consecutive month, the market players consulted lowered their growth projections below what the Government itself says.
According to the monthly survey, experts estimated that Chile’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will expand by 2.8% in 2019, down from the 2.9% forecast in the June survey.
In addition, it is worth remembering that last June 7, the same issuer announced the decision to cut the interest rate by 50 basis points, to 2.5%, and estimated that the projection of economic growth for the country this year at a threshold of less than 3% , putting it at 2.75%, a counter-appeal of government omens which until this week insisted that they would range from 3% to 3.5%.

Original source in Spanish