translated from Spanish: Minister Cerda explains that US$6 billion of the Covid fund will be financed with copper revenue and if missing from “the FEES”

The Minister of Finance, Rodrigo Cerda referred to the government project that was entered in Congress on Tuesday, which seeks to create a new bonus for the middle class and a solidarity loan, which was entered with immediate discussion in the Chamber of Deputies. In fact, hours later he began processing at the Finance Commission.
During his intervention at the instance, he gave details on how these US$6 billion would be costed from the tax office, which reportedly would come from higher copper revenues, and, if necessary, the Economic and Social Stabilization Fund (FEES) would be used.
In that line, he recalled that about half of the Covid fund was spent last year on various support measures, and that the other half was practically already committed to other expenditures this year. “That’s what we’re running out of, ” he remarked.
“We had to put in additional resources and that’s why the President announced $6 billion more yesterday,” he said. What, “in practice, is to reset the covid fund or start again with the covid fund and reach US$18 billion.”
He was subsequently consulted on the origin of the resource injection. On that, Cerda said that “a significant part comes from the additional resources we’re having this year,” related to “higher projected copper revenues.”
“Since the mining royalty is increasing its rate when we have a higher price, that in itself is giving us a higher revenue projection this year. What we could have done is save those higher incomes, and surely in previous years, without a pandemic situation, maybe we would have, that’s what our tax rule would have said,” he explained.
Although if resources do not reach, Cerda said they will resort “to fees, the Economic and Social Stability Fund.” “If the price of copper eventually declined now, what we’re going to have to do is we’re going to have to fund this $6 billion with resources coming from the FEES, the Economic and Social Stability Fund,” he added.

Original source in Spanish

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