translated from Spanish: Finance Minister and Dipres holder hand over the axes of the Budgets Bill 2020

Finance Minister Felipe Larraín and Dipres owner Rodrigo Cerda today presented details of the 2020 Budgets Bill, an initiative that sees an increase in spending of 3% real compared to the pres year and was presented last night by the President of the Republic, Sebastián Piñera, on a national broadcaster.
“We are in the presence of a budget that will represent a strong impetus for economic revival and that is fiscally responsible,” the finance company said.
The authority added that next year’s era allows for three-dimensional progress. One, the commitments of the Government programme; two, the reduction of the structural deficit and three; boost public investment as one of the drivers of economic revival.
On this budget, the Director of Budgets, Rodrigo Cerda, added: “The Budgets Bill 2020 adequately manages to prioritize the social objectives set out by the Government programme, by increasing more than US$2 billion and, to in turn, meet the need to reduce the structural deficit of our economy, being responsible in fiscal matters.”
The initiative envisages an increase in public spending of 3% real, which means an increase of US$2.133 million, reaching a total amount of US$74,169 million, and a 6.8% increase in investment.
On the latter point, Minister Larraín added that it is considered an increase in sectoral investment for the portfolios of the ministries of Public Works, Housing and Urban Planning, Health, Sport and Regional Governments of 7.5%, which allows to finance more 2,000 projects in all regions (not including THE GORe, which define their portfolio in the year), including airports, ports, reservoirs, roads, parks, public transport, train network and the national fiber optic highway.
“We want public investment to leverage private investment,” said the authority, who reiterated that the Government is working in different dimensions to revive economic activity. In fact, today commented on the figures for the budget implementation in August, which reflect the positive impact of the Government’s Economic Acceleration Agenda, which already adds up to US$3 billion in public and private investment.
According to Dipres data, Central Budget Government expenditures in August grew by 3.9% compared to the same month in 2018, while capital expenditures have increased by 11.2%. “Starting in July, we can see a tremendous boost in public investment (…) We have been with double-digit expansions in investment growth over the previous year for two months and this is in line with our Economic Acceleration Agenda,” the finance minister said.
Health and Education concentrate almost half of the resources
The Secretary of State emphasized that in the bill, which entered Congress today, Education and Health stand out both for its size of expenditure and for the contribution to growth, concentrating almost half of the resources in these two dimensions.
The authority mentioned some initiatives in the 2020 Budget, such as the additional $34,353 million to the National Public Safety Agreement, which will improve infrastructure, technology, vehicles and equipment, as well as advance the Street Plan Sure.
He also referred to the importance of the 2020 Budget to older adults. It highlights the 4.2% increase in resources to improve the quality of life of older adults and that the treasury allocates US$ 296 million for the Pension Reform, which will become part of the budget of the Ministry of Labour once this initiative is approved.
“This is a Budget in which the priorities of President Piñera’s government program are fully considered,” said the Minister of Finance.
Faced with the consultation on the real 3% growth of the 2020 Budget, which is lower than previous projects, he explained that the Government will respect the fiscal rule, which sets adheres to structural parameters, which are trend GDP and the price of copper of long-term. The latter parameter, the Minister of Finance warned, was lower, affecting the order of more than US$ 800 million revenues.
“We are fulfilling our commitments while making a special effort to accelerate investment, which we hope will have a correlation through a strong boost in our future productive capacity,” Minister Larraín said.
During this afternoon, Minister Felipe Larraín together with the Director of Budgets, Rodrigo Cerda, presented the document of the 2020 Budget Bill to the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Iván Flores, in the former National Congress.

Original source in Spanish