The Fund noted that Bolivia's `performance through end-September continued to be broadly in line with the [existing] programme, while normal commercial and financial activity has been rapidly restored following the events of mid-October.'
New finance minister Javier Cuevas reports that, up to September, the economy had been growing at a rate of 2.9%, helped along by a 16% increase in exports. He expects growth next year to reach 2.5% (half a point less than the central bank had forecast in May) and inflation to be in the region of 3% (as against a previously forecast 2.8%). Cuevas has ventured that this year's fiscal deficit will be contained at 7% of GDP.
COLOMBIA | Referendum failure will affect growth. In the absence of the reforms envisaged in President Alvaro Uribe's failed referendum [WR-03-42], Colombia's fiscal deficit will reach 3.8% of GDP, one point above the level agreed with the IMF. The prediction comes from the private-sector think-tank Fedesarrollo, whose director, Mauricio Cárdenas, says the fiscal adjustment will now be `much less traumatic' than it would have been if the referendum had been successful.
Fabio Villegas, president of the association of financial institutions, Anif, says, `What we are hearing [from the government] is a broad menu of tax measures [...] without measuring the impact they will have on the economy.'
Deputy finance minister Juan Ricardo Ortega has admitted that `the change in the nature of the adjustment could have adverse effects on economic growth, the welfare of households and the country's competitiveness.'
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