2024-04-27 22:04:22
Ricardo Mewes said that among the factors necessary to reverse the current situation is reducing insecurity, modernizing the State and a tax system that promotes savings and investment.
The president of the Confederation of Production and Commerce (CPC), Ricardo Mewes, during his speech at the National Business Meeting (Enade) 2024, questioned the Government’s tax reform projectwarned that Without greater investment Chile will not be able to exceed 2% growthand mentioned some of the factors that currently prevent investors from deciding to put their money in our country.
“Projecting that we are going to grow between 2% and 3% this year should not leave us satisfied at all. It is simply a confirmation that things are not getting worse, but no one assures us that they will improve,” said Mewes.
Along with ensuring that growth “has been very limited and we are facing a pause in large-scale investment projects,” the business leader asserted that “so that we can deploy all our business potential when it comes to creating, investing and helping generate the changes that society demands, certain minimum conditions must be met that have been weakening in our country for some time“.
In this sense, the president of the CPC mentioned some milestones that, according to him, have made it difficult to improve growth figures, such as, for example, the tax reform approved in 2014, to the change in the electoral system in 2015 that “prevents large social agreements for investment and growth”as well as the social outbreak and the pandemic.
Tax reform
Ricardo Mewes questioned the “refoundational economic and social reforms, the main ones, in tax and pension matters“.
To reinforce his point of view, he recalled that between 2014 and 2023 “Chile grew on average 1.9% per year, far from the average of 4.8% registered between 2004 and 2013when everything indicated that we were moving steadily towards the select group of developed countries.”
He also referred to The Economist ranking, according to which “Chile dropped 9 places globally, going from 21 to 30“, which would be due to “policies that are not business-friendly; More restrictive labor laws and rising crime ratesamong other”.
How to increase investment
After the questions, the president of the CPC raised in Enade 2024 what, in his opinion, are factors that would positively influence to reverse the current situation and generate greater investment in the country.
In that sense, he mentioned seven topics that are essential to achieve this. The first is related to security, since “Violence is a very high tax that we are all paying today, people and companies.“.
The second referred to the need to have “a modern, efficient, agile and professional State. A State that accompanies and allows the private sector to deploy its full potential. “A honest State at the service of citizens, that encourages entrepreneurship.”
Thirdly, he mentioned that “legal certainty is a requirement to move forward,” and questioned “the current public system of environmental and sectoral permits, which has become a stumbling block “which lengthens and excessively complicates the processing of investment projects.”
The fourth point pointed to a tax system that promotes savings, investment and the development of companies. For this reason, he did not hesitate to assure that “A tax reform with tax increases would be tremendously detrimental to economic growth“.
Fifth, he placed human capital and called for “develop new skills and knowledge continuously, from early childhood to adulthood“.
Sustainable economy
The sixth theme has to do with “taking advantage of our comparative advantages in the transition towards a sustainable economy”, and spoke of the “historic opportunity to transform Chile into one of the main exporters of clean energy globally“, which would encourage both new investments and job creation.
Finally, the seventh point mentioned by Mewes referred to the need to have “with a political system that provides governability, generating incentives to once again have good public policies that favor investment, employment and growth“.
In the final part of his speech, the business leader said that “this 2024 tests us in the challenging race towards our future, in which We can choose the path that leads us towards progress, or we can make mistakes, fail the citizens and stay trapped in the field of underdevelopment.“, he concluded.