The country’s productive sectors, including the business sector, are waiting to know how and from when power outages will be reduced across the country following President Guillermo Lasso’s announcement last Sunday from Bogota, where he agreed to buy 450 MW of energy with Colombia and import another 50 MW from Peru.

The president also arrived in Guayaquil to meet with businessmen who have thermal power plants and to arrange the delivery of another 100 MW.

For Gabriela Uquillas, director of the Ecuadorian Business Committee (CEE), the measure of buying energy from neighboring countries was necessary, but she indicated that the executive should have implemented this management before the blackouts that began across the country last Thursday, December 26. .

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“The import of energy from Colombia and Peru is a necessary measure to guarantee the supply of electricity in Ecuador, which had to be implemented before resorting to its interruption,” said Uquillas. He added that the business community hopes that the purchase of energy will soon be reflected in the reduction of power outages, which, for example, affected the commercial sector. The Chamber of Commerce of Quito (CCQ) analyzed that this sector stops selling 18 million dollars for every hour without electricity supply. Cuts are announced at four hours for the Sierra and Oriente region and three hours for the Coast region.

At the same time, Uquillas warned that the import of energy products is necessary, but that it is still a temporary measure that does not represent a final solution to the problem.

“We hope this (power importation) will materialize soon to mitigate the effect of the blackout. However, this is a temporary measure. It is important that the government takes measures to solve the underlying problem,” said the director of the Ecuadorian Business Committee.

On the other hand, the Chamber of Industry and Production (CIP) and CCQ propose five actions for the final solution to the power crisis:

These actions, the unions believe, must be planned at the technical dialogue table, while the manufacturing sector remembers that energy is the basis of production and trade. Between the industrial sector (25%) and commerce (17%), they consume the largest amount of energy produced in Ecuador.

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For his part, President Lasso indicated on Sunday, in Guayaquil, that the entry of this energy will take place from this week.

In the meantime, despite the announcements of the arrival of energy from Colombia, Peru and the private sector there, power cuts are planned to continue in Ecuador this Monday, after it was announced on Sunday, October 29, that there would be no rationing. However, power outages were reported in some parts of Quito, for example in La Armenia, where the power went out from 11:00.