jose de gregorio : the chilean economy in the current conjuncture speech by mr jose de gregorio, governor of the central bank of chile, before the executive committee of chile ’ s confederacion de la produccion y del comercio, santiago, 30 june 2009. * * * first and foremost, thank you for inviting me to speak about the chilean economy ’ s current situation and future prospects. the world crisis that is underway poses big challenges, and the effects it is having on our country as it unfolds stress how important it is to keep in contact with the entrepreneurial community to share our vision and become aware of your impressions. when we presented our monetary policy report ( the report ) of last may, we gave an account of the difficulties facing the world economy, which will see output drop for the first time in six decades. moreover, this crisis has been characterized by great synchrony among countries, regardless of the strengths or weaknesses of each one ( figure 1 ). as we have said over and over during and after the most stressful times in external financial markets, our country could not and would not be immune to the effects of the crisis. actually, the macroeconomic outlook changed radically while fiscal and monetary policies reacted accordingly to the challenge, by adding a stimulus of unprecedented magnitude and speed. in the case of our central bank, between january and june we reduced the monetary policy interest rate ( mpr ) by 750 basis points to 0. 75 % annually, the lowest ever. figure 1 world growth ( annualized q - o - q change, percent ) - 5 - 5 - 10 - 10 - 15 - 15 - 20 - 20 ii iii chile u. s. a. iv eurozone ii japan iii iv trading partners sources : central bank of chile based on sample of investment banks, consensus forecasts, bloomberg and imf. in recent weeks, news from abroad has ceased to be mostly negative. various agents ’ projections for world growth have stabilized, and some have even risen marginally ( table 1 ). still, this is not enough to be seen as a significant external boost for our economy, because world growth remains at low rates. table 1 world growth ( * ) ( annual growth, percentage ) world world at market er us euro area japan china rest of asia latin america commodity exporters trade partners prom. 90 - 99 prom. 00 - 05 ( e ) 2. 9 2. 4 3. 1 2. 2 1

monetary policy report presentation before the finance commission of the honorable senate of the republic mario marcel governor central bank of chile 5 december 2018 the december 2018 monetary policy report can be found at http : / / www. bcentral. cl. introduction mr president of the senate ’ s finance commission, senator juan pablo letelier, senators members of this commission, ladies, gentlemen, i am grateful for your invitation to present the vision of the board of the central bank of chile ( bcch ) on the recent macroeconomic developments, prospects, and implications for monetary policy. this vision is contained in detail in our december 2018 monetary policy report published this morning. its contents provide the background for the decision adopted by the board at yesterday ’ s monetary policy meeting, and consider the october imacec1 that was released today. at yesterday ’ s meeting, the board decided unanimously to keep the monetary policy rate ( mpr ) unchanged at 2. 75 percent. at the same time, we reiterated that the evolution of macroeconomic conditions make it possible and necessary to gradually reduce the monetary stimulus. this decision is consistent with the analysis and baseline projection scenario i will be sharing with you now. this analysis begins noting that annual inflation has risen throughout the year. after being under 2 % almost the entire second half of 2017, today annual inflation is around 3 %. although this increase owes partly to the more volatile components of the consumer price index ( cpi ) and the depreciation of the peso, inflation of the items in the basket that are most sensitive to the activity gap — ie. services and nontradables — has risen gradually, but steadily, over the course of 2018. this is in line with the growth recovery that began more than a year ago, in a context of favorable external conditions and a clearly expansionary monetary impulse. this process took a pause in the third quarter due to specific factors affecting mining and manufacturing, but it is estimated to resume in the fourth quarter. the october imacec released this morning is an indication, as it shows activity growing 4. 2 % annually, with the non - mining component growing 5. 1 %. with this, the economy will grow 4 % this year and between 3. 25 % and 4. 25 % in 2019. inflation will follow a similar path, slowing down for some months as a result of the fall in international fuel prices, to then begin rising and converging to 3 % towards the end of 2019. key factors in this outlook