President Piñera launches the 2021 National Business Meeting: "I am convinced that our country will overcome the many crises it is facing and be strengthened by them”
The President reviewed the measures introduced to combat the pandemic, the arrival of vaccines, the fiscal plan for 2021, the social demands and the constitutional reform process.
The President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, launched the XLII National Business Meeting (ENADE in Spanish) with a telematic speech from his home, as he is in preventive quarantine.
The meeting was organized by the Chilean Institute of Rational Business Administration (ICARE) where the President said, "Despite the current difficulties, I want to share with you a message of faith and hope, as the best is still ahead, it is still to come.”
The President used the occasion to reflect on the Government's management of the pandemic, and lamented the loss of 2 million jobs as a result of the economic crisis that has affected Chile and the entire world.
"The first priority within the Government's strategy focused on expanding hospital capacity, tripling the number of ICU beds in our public sector with their respective medical equipment, ventilators and technological equipment. The second priority focused on integrating public and private health systems to optimize coordination and effectiveness when combating the pandemic. The third priority focused on increasing testing, traceability and isolation capacity, on multiplying by 28 our PCR testing capacity, hiring 10,000 people to track the contagious, and adding 10,000 places to residential care homes," explained the President.
He also referred to the Vaccination Campaign and confirmed that during the next two weeks 90,000 weekly doses of the Pfizer-BionTech vaccine will be received, which will increase to 170,000 weekly doses in February. He added that 10 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine are expected to arrive during the first quarter.
The President explained that the budget to reactivate the economy is based on two fundamental principles, which are austerity, exemplified by the reallocation of over US$ 2.46 billion to finance new priorities, and responsibility, with the objective of stabilizing the fiscal deficit and public debt with effect from 2024.
The President added, "Our economy is already recovering, as economic activity has been growing for almost 6 months now, and new jobs have been created over the past 4 months. In fact, we have already recovered 840,000 of the 2 million jobs lost.”
He concluded, "I am convinced that our country will overcome the many crises it is facing and be strengthened by them, and that together we will continue to travel the road to freedom, progress, unity, justice and peace.