* Chile’s central bank (BCCh) has released the figures of its monthly economic activity index (Imacec) for April, indicating a 14.1% drop in economic activity compared with April 2019. Finance Minister
Ignacio Briones tweeted that this figure marks the largest fall in the Imacec since records began. Although the mining Imacec fell by only 0.1%, the non-mining Imacec plummeted by 15.5%, which the BCCh attributes to the impact of measures adopted to contain the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The most affected sectors were services (education, transport, restaurants, hotels, and corporate services) and trade. Lesser affected activities were construction and manufacturing. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) has forecast that Chile’s GDP will contract by 4% in 2020.
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