subject to a number of risks. considering that in june domestic demand – and output – already was showing faster than foreseen velocity, we cannot rule out gaps closing faster than assumed in the baseline scenario. nor can we rule out that some part of that strength responded to merely temporary factors, such as the earthquake, and output will slow down before we think. in the global context, several risks are still latent. u. s. growth may weaken more than foreseen, with effects on financial markets – in particular stock index reversals – and new postponements of the monetary stimulus withdrawal. the fiscal accounts in developed economies – especially in some countries in europe – is still cause for concern, mainly because of their effects on perceived risks and in the final recovery of the world economy. furthermore, measures adopted in china to limit credit growth and prevent an overheating may result in a weaker world economy and lower commodity prices. as usual, the persistence of global imbalances entails risks both on capital flows across economic areas and on the behavior of parities between different currencies. in the recent past, the trajectory of international food prices has reopened the concern on its future performance and its impact on inflation, given the high degree of pass - through we observed in chile from world price hikes in 2007 and the first half of 2008. overall, it is not that clear that, if wheat prices continue to rise internationally, the local economy will replicate them, because domestic margins have remained fairly large. if any of these scenarios materializes, there will be direct consequences for the growth and inflation scenario foreseen by the board. after considering all the elements described, the board believes that the balance of risks for inflation and output is unbiased, and we reiterate that we will continue to use our policies with flexibility so that projected inflation stands at 3 % in the policy horizon. concluding remarks let me finish with some short reflections. after several years of heavy turbulences and natural disasters, the chilean economy is on a very good standing to continue on a path of sustained growth. price stability has been preserved, preventing inflation from affecting the purchasing power of citizens, especially those with less income and thus less capability to protect themselves against this menace. growth has consolidated, pushing the rate of job creation to levels we had not seen in years. the contribution of monetary policy to this good performance is unquestionable. it has been flexible enough to be able to be applied when facing sharp

in recent years. this combines with significant financial and trade integration, making it easier to search for new markets and opportunities for our businesses. in addition, chile´s official and private bis central bankers ’ speeches sectors have a fairly good liquidity position when its liquid foreign assets and the structure of its liabilities are properly assessed. in the past five years, the availability of net external financial liquidity has been around 70 % of gdp, compared to its near 45 % levels that the country had between 1998 and 2008. this includes the central bank ’ s international reserves, sovereign wealth funds and liquid assets of the private sector. it has also been shown that in periods of financial stress the resources of the domestic pension funds operate countercyclically, as they return to the country during periods of increased volatility in world markets. the credibility of this institutional framework has been reflected in the performance of macrofinancial indicators. this framework successfully dodged a very challenging test during 2008 – 2009, struggling with the effects of the global financial crisis on our economy, and later with the consequences of the high terms of trade and over - abundance of international liquidity. chile ’ s economic outlook for 2014 nevertheless, the changes we have seen in the world macroeconomic scenario have had an impact that exceeded our forecasts of some months ago. our new projections for 2014 will be released in our upcoming march monetary policy report, but it should come as no surprise that our growth outlook for this year has been corrected downward from december. private forecasts have already internalized this change. what are the factors behind this? first and foremost, there has been a slowdown in domestic investment, caused by both the abatement of global mining investment cycle and other specific developments. the slowdown in consumption has been more gradual, in line with fundamentals that, although they ceased to improve, are still good. as i said, investment is the one component of expenditure that has endured the biggest adjustments in the past few quarters. one explanation is the deceleration of emerging economies, china mostly, and the impact it has had on commodity prices, particularly metals. the price of our main export – copper – is around us $ 3 dollars per pound, compared with a little over us $ 3. 50 a year ago and nearly us $ 4. 0 in early 2012. in addition, the outlook for future prices has also been revised downward, triggering a postponement of mining investments whose effects spread to other economic sectors. at any rate