Chile, the Latin American country with the greatest confidence in its economy

Chile is the country in Latin America where consumers have the greatest confidence in its economy, which is recovering in record time after the serious crisis caused by the pandemic, revealed a survey by the consulting firm Ipsos.

The report “Global Confidence Index 2021″ (CCI), which is based on the opinion of more than 21,000 people in 28 countries, reflects that the confidence of Chilean consumers increased 0.3 points compared to September and reached 46.9%, compared to 48.5% of the world average.

This is the sixth consecutive increase since April, which places Chile in 15th place of the 28 economies measured, at the same level as Spain or Israel and above Latin American countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Peru.

Despite the upward trend evidenced, the consulting firm warned that “the score obtained puts Chile in an area where pessimism prevails over optimism in the economy (less than 50 points)”.

“In a context marked by rising inflation, the gradual increase in contagion and the processing of the fourth withdrawal of the Chilean AFPs (Pension Fund Administrators), the slight increase in Chilean confidence is driven mainly by the feeling of greater employability and job stability, reflected in an increase of 1.6 points in the Labor sub-index”, Explained the national manager of Ipsos, Jorge López.

In return, he added, “decreases the sensation related to the purchasing and investment capacity, whose index decreases by 0.5 points”.

The Chilean economy contracted by 5.8% in 2020 – the worst fall in four decades – and almost two million jobs were lost due to the pandemic, but it is recovering in record time and grew by 15.6% in September compared to the same period of the previous year.

The Central Bank of Chile, which is intensifying the withdrawal of the monetary stimulus due to the improvement of the economy and the inflationary risk, estimates Chilean GDP growth for this year of between 10.5% and 11.5%.

For its part, China continues to lead the ranking, with an index of 72%, followed by Saudi Arabia (64.3%) and Sweden (60.2%), while in the tail is Turkey, with 28.9%.

Another noteworthy aspect of the report is the new drop in confidence in USA (-0.8%), which experiences its third consecutive decline, although it remains in fourth place with 58.2%.