In the framework of an international event, the president asked for tools for rapid disbursement of credits given the exceptional conditions that the world is going through.
Not evaluating countries with pre-pandemic criteria, when the world and especially emerging countries go through the worst economic moment since World War II, was the request that President Iván Duque made this Thursday to the risk rating firms.
The call was made within the framework of the XIII International Economic Forum on Latin America and the Caribbean, an event organized by the French Development Agency (AFD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Development Center of the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD).
It is worth remembering that on May 19 it was learned that the Standard & Poor’s agency lowered the country’s credit rating, which made Colombia lose its investment grade, just after the Government withdrew the tax reform that led to a beginning the mobilizations of the national strike.
Read more about this: Colombia lost investment grade on Standard & Poor’s scale
“I want to emphasize that today we have a challenge, and we need the voice of the OECD, the voice of the IDB, to be clear: Countries cannot continue to be evaluated by risk rating agencies with pre-pandemic criteria. Today we know that the challenges are great, enormous, that we need to go out and come out with growth, with growth that brings fiscal responsibility, ”said the president.
Duque stressed that addressing the crisis derived from the coronavirus “implied an increase in public debt and deficit, but, among many things, the Commitment to Colombia was achieved, a reactivation plan of USD $ 45,000 million, doubling the intensive care units, and create a social protection safety net supported by the OECD and the IDB ”.
Looking ahead, he emphasized that 2021 is challenging in the sense that the pandemic has not ended, but it is necessary to reactivate the economy and advance vaccination.
“We need all multilateral organizations to be aware that emerging markets can suffer greatly from an eventual rise in interest rates in the United States and we are also aware that, given the report of the International Monetary Fund where it says that the relationship of Debt / GDP in the world average will be reaching 99%, we will be seeing fierce competition for debt in the coming years ”, he specified.
For this reason, he asked for tools for rapid disbursement of credits, care, partial guarantees, “but also to allow an assessment of these efforts in an almost exceptional context of a pandemic, to help maintain the credibility of the public finances of many of the our countries”.
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