In La Araucanía, President Piñera launches agenda to boost Chile’s economy
The agenda includes additional funds for public works, including highways, ports, airports and reservoirs, housing subsidies and boosting productivity. These measures aim to increase economic growth by promoting investment and employment.
President Sebastían Piñera was in the Araucanía region on Wednesday, where he presented an agenda to stimulate the economy by injecting additional resources and speeding up public works projects and legislative measures to promote investment and create jobs.
“As a country, we need to strengthen our capacity to grow, create jobs and improve wages in order to improve people’s quality of life,” said the President. He was speaking after visiting the new San Gabriel Wind Park in Renaico, which entailed investment totaling US$270 million and is expected to boost development in the La Araucanía region.
The plan will bring forward US$2.4 billion in public works investments for 2019 and 2020. This includes bringing forward the identification of projects, increasing infrastructure resources, together with US$300 million that has been earmarked for hospitals.
The creation of 15,000 new housing subsidies will boost employment, investment and economic activity because of the increased investment in labor involved. This initiative will generate 45,000 new jobs and entails investment of US$1 billion.
The Sustainable Project Management Office (GPS) has identified major works on which construction will begin in the second half of the year. The investment of nearly US$7.4 billion will generate 14,700 jobs.
The President highlighted that the national infrastructure plan is also contributing towards boosting the economy. This entails investment of US$20 billion between 2018 and 2022 to build or expand 17 airports, 26 reservoirs, 12 port projects and new roads.
“Not only are we going to improve our capacity for growth today, but we will also be strengthening the Chilean economy’s capacity for ongoing growth,” said the President.
President Piñera also emphasized the boost for entrepreneurship through measures like the 30-day payment law, which will lend certainty to the operations of thousands of small businesses in order to speed up the payment chain. Furthermore, the tax modernization bill includes benefits for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises in order to reactivate private investment and job creation.
“Now, more than ever, we need the people of Chile to be united so that Chile can come through the difficult times facing the global economy,” said the President.
Visit to the site of the new Angol Hospital
President Piñera also toured the facilities of the new Angol Hospital. With an investment of $107 billion pesos and a surface area of some 44,000 m2 , the new hospital will provide the space and high complexity medical solutions that the people of La Araucanía need.
“We need quality healthcare to be the heart and soul of everyone who works at this hospital so that when people are sick – when they are weak, vulnerable and most need to be treated with dignity and care, and need assistance recovering their health – they have access to all those things at the Angol Hospital,” said the President.
The medical center will have 194 beds, an increase of 27%, and will employ around 1,000 professionals in 40 specialties including cardiology, neurology, psychiatry, pediatrics, oncology, gynecology, radiology, laboratory and MRI.
The new health facility will provide the 200,000 residents of the Malleco province with 163 standard care beds, 12 intensive care beds, 6 high dependency beds, 7 neonatal intensive care beds and 6 pediatric intensive care beds.
The President promised to speed up the opening of the hospital, which is 94% complete and is scheduled to open in 2020.
The hospital is part of the plan President Piñera unveiled in August 2018, which includes investment of more than US$10 billion and adds 12,400 beds to the public health network. The plan adds a total of 25 hospitals during this administration, while another 25 will be under construction and a further 25 in the study, design or bidding phases by the end of the government term.
“I believe that we are taking a great step forward in terms of healthcare quality, which is one of the things people most ask for,” said the President.