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See all the wonderful things Charlotte Knight has made

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The decision by Chile's constitutional court to approve a bill that will allow abortion in some circumstances has been hailed as "a triumph of reason and an act of justice" by campaigners.

The legislation, a victory for the centre-left president, Michelle Bachelet, will allow abortion when a woman's life is at risk, in case of rape and when a foetus is not viable.

"Today, women have won, democracy has won, all of Chile has won," said Bachelet, who introduced the bill in 2015.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, said Chile had finally moved one step closer to protecting the human rights of women and girls.

"This victory is testament to the work of millions of women across the Americas and the world who fight against draconian laws that punish women and push them to seeking clandestine and dangerous abortions, putting their health and lives at risk."

Maria Stella Toro, from the EPES (Popular Education in Health) collective, said it was "a triumph of reason and an act of justice", and that the move opened up the possibility of a much fuller public debate on abortion - with the ultimate goal of further liberalisation.

José Miguel Vivanco, Human Rights Watch's director of the Americas, called the decision a "landmark for human rights in Chile. By ending the cruel, harmful, and regressive policy of criminalising abortion in all circumstances, the court protected women's lives and fundamental rights."

Toro did, however, sound a note of caution: "It's difficult to view this as a complete victory, given that apart from the three cases permitted, all other forms of abortion continue to be criminalised. And most of the women who have been prosecuted have been reported to the authorities by medical institutions after suffering complications from an illegal abortion."

Judges ruled in favour of the bill by 6-4 votes. The full text of the ruling will be published next week.

The court did allow for conscientious objection, meaning that any doctor or medical assistant can refuse to carry out an abortion.

Reaction from opponents of the bill, led by the Catholic church, has been vitriolic. Cristián Contreras, vice-president of the Episcopal Conference of Bishops, said the ruling was "a terrible decision, influenced by an ideology of death" and runs against the fundamental principles of the country's constitution.

Chile once had some of the most liberal abortion laws in Latin America. But conservative views, particularly those of the church, began to take hold. In the final phase of his dictatorship, Augusto Pinochet introduced an outright ban.

A recent opinion poll by the research firm Cadem found that some 70% of Chileans (pdf) supported the legalisation of abortion as specified in the bill.

Figures are difficult to come by, but as many as 70,000 illegal abortions are performed each year in Chile. However, few cases are actually brought before the courts.

Guevara-Rosas added: "The real test now is to ensure the law is actually enforced, that women and girls are fully able to access the comprehensive health services they need and that this reform opens the door for them to be able to fully enjoy their sexual and reproductive rights."

Activists hope the Chile ruling will open the doors for a relaxation of laws in other countries. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Malta and Dominican Republic have outright bans on abortion.

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'A triumph of reason': Chile approves landmark bill to ease abortion ban

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The decision by Chile's constitutional court to approve a bill that will allow abortion in some circumstances has been hailed as "a triumph of reason and an act of justice" by campaigners. The legislation, a victory for the centre-left president, Michelle Bachelet, will allow abortion when a woman's life is at risk, in case of rape and when a foetus is not viable.

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Digna Batista was promised she would be heading to paradise when she paid people smugglers to take her from the Dominican Republic to Chile. Instead, she found herself walking across a desert minefield to encounter a less than sympathetic welcome in a society that is struggling to accommodate a growing number of migrants from the Caribbean.

Discrimination, labour abuse and outdated immigration policies have made adjustment difficult for many among the more than 50,000 Haitians and 15,000 Dominicans who are part of an economic migration story that is quickly moving up the political agenda before a presidential election later this year.

Batista borrowed more than $2,500 to pay coyotes (the people smugglers) for the journey across the Andes and the Atacama desert in the hope of finding a better life.

Leaving her three-year-old son behind, she first flew to Ecuador, where she continued by bus - at one point crushed with 17 others in the luggage hold - on the 3,000km overland route through Peru to the Chilean border. Once there, she and the others were told to head towards a distant light.

"We walked all night. Finally, in the morning, we got to a road, stopped a passing taxi and asked the driver to take us to the nearest hostel. He told us we'd just walked through a minefield," she recalled.

The dangers are all too real. More than 90,000 mines were laid by the Chilean military in the 1970s - a time of dictatorship and paranoia about Peru. Although the army subsequently promised to decommission them all by 2012, progress has been slow and about 40,000 are still in place. Warning signs are either inadequate, misplaced or ignored by desperate migrants. Last year, a 24-year-old Dominican, Daniel Sosa, lost his left foot when he stepped on a mine trying to enter the country illicitly to find work after being denied a visa.

A string of such incidents - some of them fatal - have caused growing diplomatic concern that Chile's border policies are driving people to risk illegal crossings. The Dominican Republic consul in Arica, Nina Consuegra, said Chile's PDI border police are now stopping and denying entry to anyone who is either black or Venezuelan if they fail to show pre-paid hotel vouchers and return tickets.

But even those who arrive legally face prejudice.

Until the 1990s, Chile had only a small black population, so the recent arrival of a black migrants has caused a stir.

History suggests this ought not to be the case. A 2014 genetic study found that one in two Chileans had ancestors among the thousands of African slaves brought to the country between the 16th and 19th centuries. But Chile's elite have long preferred to emphasise their country's European roots and the newcomers are now the subject of a growing debate.

"[The migrants] are often very badly discriminated against," says sociologist María Emilia Tijoux. "Some are really suffering. And it's not just a legal problem, it's because there's a part of Chilean society that's so damned racist."

Batista says she has experienced kindness and hostility.

She now works as a maid in uptown Santiago while trying to legalise her residency so that one day she can bring her son Brayan to live with her.

Many Haitians find low-paid niches in the labour market where Chileans are reluctant to work, particularly construction, domestic service and agriculture.

Lacking full legal rights, some are exploited, said Haitian community leader Widner Darcelin, who said migrants sometimes work for months without being paid.

Earlier this month, a homeless Haitian migrant named Joseph Polycart died of hypothermia after he was twice turned away from a local hospital on a freezing night.

But there are also positive stories. N'kulama Saint Louis arrived in Santiago with his wife Patricia and two-year-old son N'kulahi in 2010, following Haiti's devastating earthquake. Today N'kulama works as a street-sweeper, and studies sociology at the Catholic University by night. "We got a lot of support from our Chilean friends," he said, "but the government doesn't have a comprehensive immigration policy and that's a huge problem."

The current system is widely criticised as outdated. One notorious immigration law - a holdover of the Pinochet dictatorship - intrinsically views all migrants as potential subversives, said Jean Claude Pierre-Paul, a Haitian social worker.

And the situation could get worse. The centre-right candidate in the election, former president and billionaire businessman Sebastian Piñera, is following the example of Trump in the United States and Argentina's Mauricio Macri by proposing tighter border controls and the expulsion of all irregular migrants - an estimated 150,000 people.

Given Chile's enormous 5,000km frontier, there is no suggestion of a border wall, but tighter regulations alone could drive more migrants to attempt risky illegal crossings of mountains, deserts and minefields.

"Visas don't control migration - migrants will just turn to people smugglers to enter the country," said Rodrigo Sandoval, head of the ministry of the interior's immigration department.

Sandoval said Chile needs a new immigration law that helps to attract more outsiders to offset the country's aging population and labour shortages. His proposals have prompted a rightwing backlash on social media, where xenophobes describe him as a traitor who is allowing Chile to be "invaded."

Cooler heads urge self-reflection. In the Independencia neighbourhood, social worker Patricia Loredo, who helps run the Sin Fronteras migrants rights collective, believes Chileans need to be much better informed and educated about their heritage.

"Most Chileans don't have a clear idea of their cultural identity," she said, "but this is clearly a mixed-race society."

This article was amended on 30 June 2017. A previous version incorrectly numbered the mines planted by the Chilean military at 50,000.

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Caribbean migrants risk danger and discrimination for a new life in Chile

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Digna Batista was promised she would be heading to paradise when she paid people smugglers to take her from the Dominican Republic to Chile. Instead, she found herself walking across a desert minefield to encounter a less than sympathetic welcome in a society that is struggling to accommodate a growing number of migrants from the Caribbean.

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Le président bolivien estime que l'économie de son pays souffre lourdement du manque d'accès à l'océan Pacifique. Un isolement qui dure depuis plus de 130 ans.

Le Monde | * Mis à jour le

Le chef de l'Etat bolivien, Evo Morales, a accusé, lundi 12 décembre, le Chili d'" économicide " envers la Bolivie, soit " l'équivalent d'un génocide, un crime contre l'humanité ", en la privant toujours d'un accès à l'océan Pacifique.

" Je suis presque convaincu que le fait de nous priver d'un accès au Pacifique, en nous faisant payer des taxes portuaires, est une politique d'économicide de la part du Chili ", a insisté le président bolivien, après avoir reçu une étude de l'ONG européenne Oxfam sur le coût pour la Bolivie de son manque d'accès à la mer.

#Ahora #DavidChoquehuanca En instantes comenzará la presentación del libro del Oxfam. https://t.co/Z164bcZvQX
- MRE_Bolivia (@Cancilleria Bolivia)

Selon cette étude intitulée " La Bolivie, un pays privé de littoral ", l'économie bolivienne pâtit fortement de cet isolement et amputerait chaque année le produit intérieur brut (PIB) bolivien de près de 1,5 point de croissance.

" La majeure partie des surcoûts que nous devons payer pour avoir accès au Pacifique sont dans les caisses des institutions publiques chiliennes ", a regretté lundi le ministre des affaires étrangères bolivien, David Choquehuanca.

Des poursuites devant la CIJ

La Bolivie a perdu son accès à l'océan Pacifique suite à une guerre avec le Chili en 1879 qui eut pour enjeu le contrôle des richesses du désert d'Atacama, notamment le guano et le salpêtre. A l'issue de ce conflit armé, la Bolivie fut privée de sa souveraineté sur une bande côtière de 400 km. Depuis, elle est, avec le Paraguay, le seul Etat enclavé en Amérique du Sud.

Ce dossier empoisonne les relations entre les deux pays qui peinent à envisager un compromis. Face au statu quo, la Bolivie a entamé des poursuites en 2013, devant la Cour internationale de justice (CIJ), afin de l'obliger à négocier " de bonne foi " l'accès maritime qu'elle demande. La CIJ s'est déclarée compétente en 2015. La Bolivie a désormais jusqu'au 21 mars pour présenter son dossier, et le Chili aura jusqu'au 21 septembre pour y répondre.

Lors d'une visite dans la capitale bolivienne en juillet 2015, le pape François a abordé cette question délicate, en invitant les deux pays à dialoguer. " Tous les thèmes, aussi épineux soient-ils, ont des solutions communes, raisonnables, équitables et durables. Et (...) ils ne doivent jamais être des motifs d'agressivité, de rancœur ou d'inimitié qui aggravent encore plus la situation et en rendent plus difficile la résolution ", avait déclaré le souverain pontife. Un appel qui faisait écho à une autre médiation papale, réalisée en 1984 par Jean Paul II, pour amener le Chili et l' Argentine à signer un traité de paix et d'amitié.

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Evo Morales estime que le Chili perpètre un " économicide " contre la Bolivie

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Le président bolivien estime que l'économie de son pays souffre lourdement du manque d'accès à l'océan Pacifique. Un isolement qui dure depuis plus de 130 ans.

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Indicators

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I was recently in beautiful Chile for a Futures Congress, and I had a chance to travel south to the very tip of Latin America. I also recently made a BBC radio documentary called Fixing Globalisation, in which I criss-crossed the UK in search of ideas for improving certain aspects of it and discussed topical issues with well-known experts. In both cases, I saw things that convinced me that it is past time for someone to come to globalisation's defence.

Chile today is Latin America's richest country, with per capita GDP of about $23,000 - similar to that of central European countries. This is quite an achievement for a country that depends so heavily on copper production, and it sets Chile apart from many of its neighbours. Like many other countries, Chile is facing economic challenges, and its growth rate leaves something to be desired; but it also has many promising opportunities beyond its borders.

For example, when I led a review on antimicrobial resistance, I learned that copper has powerful antibacterial properties and is an ideal material for use in healthcare facilities where bacteria often spread. This means that copper producers such as Chile, Australia, and Canada can improve global health - and boost exports - by introducing affordable copper infrastructure into hospitals and other clinical settings around the world.

Chile is also a storehouse of knowledge for managing earthquakes and tsunamis. While I was there, I visited La Serena, which in 2015 experienced the sixth strongest earthquake ever recorded. But the ensuing tsunami killed only 11 people, though it surely would have killed far more in many other places. Chilean officials' advanced preparation and rapid response seems to have made the difference. With so much institutional experience, Chile can be a valuable resource for other countries threatened by seismic events.

La Serena is also near one of the world's best stargazing sites, which attracts leading astronomers from around the globe. In fact, Chile hosts much remarkable collaboration among the world's scientists, in part because it is just north of the Antarctic - long a site for scientific and environmental cooperation.

Beyond Chile, it is interesting that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, is attending the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos this year. Now that Donald Trump has been elected president of the US, and the UK is withdrawing from the EU, I had assumed that such an elitist event's glory days were behind it. Xi's presence suggests that China is exploring where it can position itself on the world stage, and which elements of globalisation it can harness to its advantage, now that western powers are turning inward.

Indeed, as the Chinese ambassador to the UK pointed out on my radio programme, China is already the largest importer - yes, importer - for at least 70 countries, and accounts for about 10% to 11% of all imports globally. Despite its supposed economic challenges, China will likely be a bigger importer than the EU before this decade is over, and it will probably surpass the US soon thereafter.

Moreover, economic inequality among countries has declined sharply in the past 20 years, owing partly to China's rise, as well as to economic development across Asia, Latin America and elsewhere. In fact, by 2010, the United Nations had already achieved its millennium development goal of halving poverty by 2015, and recent projections suggest that, by 2050, poverty will be eradicated everywhere except Africa.

This will not happen without globalisation. African countries, in particular, will need to trade more with one another, and there is talk of creating an African free-trade area. But this could prove difficult now that anti-trade sentiment is on the rise. Are globalisation's critics - those who wrongly consider it a zero-sum game - against eradicating global poverty?

Policymakers can take action to alleviate anxieties about globalisation. For starters, the seemingly endless growth of profits as a share of global GDP must stop. Anyone who thinks this sounds radical needs to brush up on economics. Higher profits should attract new market entrants, which would then erode incumbents' profits through competition. The fact that this isn't happening suggests that some markets have been rigged, or have simply failed. Policymakers need to address this with stronger regulation in some areas. For example, as I have previously argued, the current climate is far too permissive of share-repurchase programmes.

At the same time, policymakers need to pursue measures to increase wages for the lowest earners, which could actually help boost productivity as capital becomes less expensive relative to labour. And, as the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, recently pointed out to me, we need to strengthen enforcement of laws governing trade deals, and do more to help challenged domestic sectors that lose out as a result of those deals.

This reminds me of a sad story I heard from some laid-off Goodyear workers in Wolverhampton, in England's West Midlands. They told me that job listings for their lost positions were posted on a notice board, and they could reapply for them if they wanted to move to Mexico. The workers surmised that it was easier for the company to close its factory in the UK than to close even less productive factories in France or Germany. Surely changes like this can be handled better.

Lastly, policymakers need to prioritise development projects such as the UK's " northern powerhouse" and "Midlands engine". And more such initiatives should be launched elsewhere.

Despite the many challenges it has created, globalisation has made the world a better place than it otherwise would have been. And we still need it to eradicate poverty and generate higher living standards for all.
* Jim O'Neill, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and former commercial secretary to the UK Treasury, is honorary professor of economics at Manchester University
© Project Syndicate 2017

Topics

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Globalisation has made the world a better place | Jim O'Neill

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I was recently in beautiful Chile for a Futures Congress, and I had a chance to travel south to the very tip of Latin America. I also recently made a BBC radio documentary called Fixing Globalisation, in which I criss-crossed the UK in search of ideas for improving certain aspects of it and discussed topical issues with well-known experts.

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Urbanisation

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Population

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Migration

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Chile’s migration boom has led to a major housing crisis

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Development

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Finding the best path to lead Chile toward economic development has been a continuous task of Chilean governments and leaders during the last century. The mission of building a society of opportunities-where each person has the chance to reach personal fulfillment, and can live with dignity and without poverty-seems now closer than ever before.

After a period of economic slowdown in terms of competitiveness, job creation, and growth during the second half of the past decade, a new center-right government was elected. President Sebastián Piñera's key reforms in the economic, educational, social, and institutional fields are showing that Chile is again progressing at a faster pace and in the right direction. Despite the extra challenge of having to deal with reconstruction after the damages caused by the February 27, 2010, earthquake and tsunami, the country has regained economic growth, expanding opportunities through employment and education, a new social policy based on autonomy, responsibility and dignity, and the building of modern and reliable institutions.

If the country is able to sustain this momentum and conviction through current public policies, at the end of this decade it will probably become the first fully developed country in Latin America.

Pursuit of Development Not New for Chile

Chile has pursued development for more than a century. Numerous Chilean presidents and other national leaders have sought to transform Chile into a country without poverty and with high levels of economic prosperity and human development.

For many Chilean leaders, development had become, in spite of historical efforts, impossible to accomplish. These leaders marked out some structural obstacles that seemed very difficult, if not impossible, to change. Some examples of these obstacles were Chile's remote geographic location, the characteristics of its long territory, and sometimes even the Chilean culture. At that time, the structure of our society and how the property was conformed was often viewed as what made the difference between prosperity and poverty.

However, reality was much better than what some leaders and citizens believed. Increasingly robust empirical evidence (such as by David S. Lanes, Robert Barro and Xavier Sala-i-Martin, or Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson) shows that reaching development is not related to the apparent obstacles just mentioned. Instead, development is a consequence of the adoption of well-designed institutions and accurate public policies, which is good news as both are variables that remain within our range of influence and action.

In the last 25 years, Chile has rapidly progressed on the basis of economic freedom, democracy, and rule of law. Consensus exists on the idea that positive results achieved in the last 25 years are due to a set of institutions and public policies in the economic, social, and political fields which have structured our country toward a path of stability and progress, and that in general terms Chile has evolved for the better. Three main issues sustain this consensus.

First, an economic model where the main drive of economic progress relies on the initiative and strength of the private sector. Therefore, an economic system that boosts entrepreneurship, competitiveness, investment, savings, and innovation with large degrees of economic freedom; moderate taxes as well as regulation, open borders for international trade and a strong commitment for responsibility on our fiscal and monetary policies.

Second, a social policy focused on the most vulnerable people, and where the public services are generally provided by both public and private agencies, so that beneficiaries can have the freedom to choose among different competing alternatives.

Third, a representative democracy. Since 1990, one of the central features of this democracy is its electoral system-the presidential, parliamentary, and municipal levels-that has fostered the conformation of two main political conglomerates, which in broad terms, have tended to moderation, providing important degrees of institutional stability.

Well-known achievements support this perspective. For example, between 1944 and 1960, income per person increased at an average rate of 1.8 percent annually; between 1984 and 1997 it reached 5.4 percent annually. In 1980, Chile had the seventh-highest per capita income in Latin America-today it has the highest of the region.

Certainly, this did not benefit only a few. When the first national poverty census was done in 1986-the Survey of National Socioeconomic Characterization (CASEN)-45 percent of the population lived in poverty. By 2006, this figure had decreased to 13.7 percent, slightly increasing to 15 percent in 2009. However, in the last two years we were able to regain a downward trend again, reaching 14.4 percent at the latest measurement in 2011.

Even in inequality, the situation is less dramatic than it appears to be. It is important to keep in mind that Chile has been, at least for a century, a very unequal country. As it usually occurs in initial phases of transition to a model based on economic freedom, between 1974 and 1985, our levels of inequality, measured by the Gini index, rose from 0.46 to 0.61. Since then, inequality has been decreasing slowly, reaching a level of 0.52 in 2011, still undeniably high. One of the most fundamental factors in decreasing inequality levels has been the reduction of educational gaps, mainly due to the increase in higher-education enrollment, which has risen from 200,000 students in 1985 to more than one million nowadays.

At the same time, Chile experienced a distinguished transition to democracy, characterized by its peacefulness and high degree of collaboration and consensus. Thereby, our system of governance advanced progressively to higher levels of consolidation and stability. These advances have brought higher freedom for our citizens, reaching historic levels, to a point that Freedom House has granted Chile the highest scores in constitutional and civil rights since 2004, an achievement in Latin America matched only by Uruguay.

Without doubt, these achievements are echoed in the general well-being of Chilean people. A life satisfaction survey by the Centre of Public Studies (CEP) in the middle of student mobilizations in July 2011, showed that within 16 years, those who felt generally satisfied with their life had increased from 62 percent to 77 percent. This rising tendency was also confirmed by the results yielded in the 2012 U.N. Human Development Report for Chile, where 80 percent of Chileans declared that they feel happy or very happy. This report also reveals that the level of human development has been steadily growing since 1980, reaching a peak score of 0.805 (out of 1) in 2011, a result that puts Chile in the first position among the Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Summing up, this economic and democratic model has allowed Chile to progress at an unseen pace in national history, with poverty decreasing at an unprecedented pace, a fall in income inequality, a stable democracy, and a significant rise in general well-being.

However, in the second half of the past decade we had lost the path due to lack of reforms and ineffective social and economic policies. During that time Chile lost the path of progress and started showing clear signs of fatigue, mainly due to a lack of capacity to lead the key reforms and improvements-both in our institutions and public policies-leadership that we all knew the country needed.

The "Chilean Nap": Decline in GDP Growth, Productivity, and Job Creation

In the economic field, Chile entered into a period dubbed the "Chilean Nap," characterized by a substantial decline in GDP growth rate, with the Chilean economy growing at a slower rate than Latin American and global growth rates. If from 1990 to 1999 our economy grew an average of 6.4 percent annually, from 2000 to 2009 this expansion only reached an annual 4 percent, and has been declining.

Additionally, very few jobs were being created, and an increasing amount of families were forced to experience the effects of unemployment. In the meanwhile, wages were practically stagnant.

The situation was no better for investment and productivity. Rates of investment, a critical component for building solid foundations in order to sustain future growth, were decreasing. Likewise, productivity rates entered a persistent deterioration, showing increasingly negative growth, reaching at its lowest point a growth rate of negative 2.3 percent in 2009, according to the Chilean Ministry of Finance.

Furthermore, as mentioned, after more than 20 years of systematic reductions of poverty levels in our society, in 2009 this tendency was interrupted and poverty began rising again, which meant that inequalities would remain in Chilean society.

In 2010, Chilean society reacted and voted for change, electing President Sebastián Piñera and a center-right coalition for the first time in 50 years.

New Government Pledged to Build Basis for Development in this Decade. The mission of this new government was to lay the foundations that would allow Chile to reach development by the end of this decade. These foundations and key reforms were based on values and ideas of a modern center-right coalition, strongly centered on confidence in people. Among these values are:

Freedom and personal responsibility. In the center-right sector, freedom is understood both as a goal in itself and as a means to achieving socially desirable objectives. It is a goal in itself because only through freedom do we treat people as human beings endowed with dignity. Freedom is also essential for human creativity, whose outcomes are spread to others by voluntary exchanges that increase overall prosperity, giving people the opportunity to achieve individual happiness.

Nevertheless, freedom must be accompanied by personal responsibility and respect for the freedom of others, understanding that we are citizens with a set of rights, but also with a set of responsibilities to fulfill.

Equality of opportunities. The goal of increasing and extending opportunities is at the core of the actual government program. The ultimate aspiration is that everyone can have a reasonable opportunity of personal fulfillment, in order to advance toward a society based on meritocracy and social mobility, where, regardless of socioeconomic origins, people could get as far as their talent, effort and free decisions can take them.

A vigorous civil society. Regarding the role of government and civil society, we strongly believe that is neither possible nor desirable to have a state that pretends to solve all of our problems, since even if it could, it would end up blocking the creative energy of society. Dynamic and innovative nations are characterized by the possibility for their citizens to create institutions to organize themselves to better meet their innumerable needs. Those institutions are the soul of society, because besides the prolific results that come with the decentralized and spontaneous search of solutions to our numerous problems, they build a sense of community based on freedom, which is certainly a healthy outcome. Examples of these contributions are the tremendous help and dedication that people and organizations of the civil society delivered in the reconstruction of the country after the 2010 earthquake, the important contributions to development of culture and arts, as well as increasing activity concerning social responsibility of private companies.

Solid and inclusive institutions. For several decades, various authors have been revealing the critical importance that institutions represent in the development of countries. One of them is the economist Douglas North, who argues that societies that reach development are the ones with institutions that make generation of knowledge and wealth less costly. More recently, economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson highlight that the key point for success resides in having solid and inclusive institutions, which can offer clear and stable rules of the game, allowing everyone to compete for the creation of wealth.

Bearing in mind the above, the government program of President Piñera puts clear emphasis in strengthening and improving our fundamental institutions-both public and private-in three main areas: the family, the civil society and the state. The family and civil society, which make up the environment in which people develop, are much promoted by this administration, understanding that they are key factors for the development of people's talents and creativity, as well as in the search for personal fulfillment. With reference to public institutions, there has been a persistent effort to enhance and refine our democracy, making it more participative and transparent. Likewise, substantial initiatives are taking place to modernize the state, by delivering services more efficiently and making them more accessible to our citizens. Besides, important improvements are in process regarding the country's decentralization-another key point for accelerating our path to development-addressing administrative, financial, and political decentralization.

A Major Challenge on the Road: The February 2010 Earthquake. On February 27, 2010, only 12 days before the new government took office, Chile was hit by the sixth-strongest earthquake followed by a tsunami, in recorded history (8.8 on the Richter scale), with the very significant loss of 526 Chileans and the disappearance of another 25 people, adding to devastating consequences along a stretch of 700 km of our territory.

The disaster struck an area of Chile extending between the Valparaíso and Araucanía regions. The area affected is inhabited by almost 13 million people-75 percent of the Chilean population. The earthquake damaged more than 50 cities and 900 towns with rural and coastal communities. More than 222,000 homes were seriously damaged or destroyed. Over four thousand schools were badly damaged, which meant that more than a million young students were unable to start the school year (considering that in Chile the school year goes from March to December). In addition, 40 hospitals were damaged, 17 of them to the point they were rendered unusable, and public infrastructure was damaged on nearly 2,500 points across the country. The devastating effects of the earthquake resulted in estimated losses of $30 billion, equal to 18 percent of Chile's GDP.

Given the scale of the catastrophe, many politicians of all sectors suggested abandoning the government's original program and to focus the four-year presidential period mainly on the reconstruction. But the government's decision was to accomplish both. President Piñera did not hesitate to pledge to reconstruct in four years the entire infrastructure damaged and destroyed by the earthquake, not only repairing the material losses, but also designing a reconstruction plan closely focused on the human interests of the Chilean people. Additionally, despite the additional challenge it implied, he decided to keep the government program unchanged and develop it fully in order to make the needed reforms that would set the basis for reaching development at the end of this decade.

The reforms were implemented to increase economic growth rate to 6 percent and create one million new jobs between 2010 and 2014. Despite the substantial decline of GDP growth rates between 2006 and 2009, and the deterioration of fiscal discipline with high levels of public spending, we have been able to recover the capacity of the economy to grow at high rates and based on solid foundations. From 2010 to 2012, the average growth rate rose to 5.7 percent annually, the second-highest growth rate among OECD countries.

The government has been implementing a set of actions to increase growth by enhancing economic freedom:

Fiscal discipline and reduction of inherited budget deficit. The importance of sustaining a moderate and responsible public expenditure in order to guarantee a sustainable economic growth is well known. In this way, if the treasury has more savings than debts, the country will be better prepared for periods of crisis, and both the state and the private sector would be able to obtain loans at lower costs. Likewise, moderate public spending helps to contain inflation, which produces substantial harm for vulnerable people as it reduces the purchasing power of their salaries.
Unfortunately, partly because of the economic crisis that affected our country and the world, especially in 2009, the past administration's outcome was a structural deficit of 3.1 percent. We have been able progressively to reduce this deficit to 0.6 percent today, despite having to finance the earthquake reconstruction process and the execution of important social reforms.Chile reached the highest growth rate among OECD countries in 2012 and government spending is again on a sustainable path.

Creating a million jobs between 2010 and 2014. Undeniably, employment is one of the most powerful tools for extending and expanding opportunities. Thanks to the strong growth rates of our economy and the persistent promotion of entrepreneurship, it has been possible to create more than 817,000 new jobs between 2010 and March 2013, in line with the achievement of the ambitious goal that President Piñera established for his mandate: creating a million new jobs. Even more, high levels of employment in our country nowadays are complemented by better salaries, and a majority of jobs created are better quality jobs, with contracts, social and job security.

Inflation has remained under control. Keeping stable macroeconomic equilibriums and a responsible management of public spending has helped control inflation. From 2010 to 2012, public expenditure grew an annual average of 4.8 percent, substantially less than the average growth of GDP, which reached 5.7 percent. This contributed to reaching levels of inflation of 3 percent in 2010, 4.4 percent in 2011, and only 1.5 percent in 2012.

Major levels of investment. Another critical factor to assure sustainable growth is investment, both public and private. The higher the percentage of GDP intended for infrastructure and machinery, the stronger the basis for future economic growth. In this way, investment rates went from an average of 21.9 percent of GDP between 2006 and 2009 to an average of 24.1 percent between 2010 and 2011. This has been possible due to a strong growth of investment-measured as gross fixed capital formation-which in this administration has increased by 16 percent annual average, more than three times our economy's growth.

Tax relief for workers, and small and medium-sized enterprises. Aiming to stimulate investment, tax benefits were approved for small and medium-sized enterprises. A new law allows tax exemptions for the first 2,500 UF (nearly USD$121,000) of earnings for these companies, whenever they are reinvested.

Tax credit for R&D expenditures. In order to enhance the competitive capacity of Chilean companies, a tax incentive was established for R&D expenditures, which will allow companies to use as tax credit a total of 35 percent of funds assigned to R&D activities. This new law has driven a large increase of investment in R&D. From 2008 to 2012-before the new incentive-around $15 million was certified; in the first four months since the new incentive came into effect, nearly $10 million was certified-two-thirds of the total amount of the last four years.

Microeconomic reforms to increase competitiveness. The Competitive Impulse Agenda (Agenda de Impulso Competitivo) is a set of 60 microeconomic reforms that seek to remove bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles in order to incentivize entrepreneurship, innovation, free economic competition, and the rise of productivity in the economy. Currently, 51 initiatives are already implemented; the rest are in progress.

Entrepreneurship. Reforms to reduce red tape and increase economic freedom have produced a boom in new ventures. We are conscious of the tremendous relevance that entrepreneurs have for building a competitive and healthy economy. Entrepreneurs bring innovation, creativity, and competitiveness. They also bring more and better job opportunities, and an increasing competition between them usually leads to lower prices for goods and services. In order to promote the emergence of entrepreneurs, we have reduced the time it takes to start a new company from 27 days to only one day.

In consequence, these incentives, added to the improvements introduced through the Competitive Impulse Agenda, are showing the desirable effects: The number of new businesses has been rising systematically. These efforts are being recognized by international organizations, situating Chile as one of the best places in the world to start a new business.

Capital markets and international trade. Capital markets are also being examined in order to improve regulations and increase levels of financial freedom in these markets. Significant enhancements are being developed in three areas: protection and better information for consumers, improvements on institutional framework of financial markets, and the modernization of the financial system.

In the trade area, new free trade agreements (FTAs) and international trade associations have taken place with Turkey, Malaysia, and Vietnam. We are negotiating a comprehensive FTA with India. In addition, the Pacific Alliance (Peru, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile) was founded in 2012. It aims to become a common trade platform for the Asia-Pacific market. Lastly, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is currently being negotiated among 11 economies from Asia and the Americas. As a result of these open-market policies, Chile already has 21 FTAs with 58 countries, which represent 70 percent of the world's population. These numerous improvements-that were implemented in order to enhance competitiveness and economic freedom-are showing valuable results.

Reforms to Increase Human Capital Based on Freedom of Choice

Education. The key role that education plays in the generation of opportunities is well known. When President Piñera took office, education was the area where most clearly the country had left aside fundamental reforms. This resulted in an increasing and cumulative frustration that ended in the massive student protests of 2011. There were also student protests in 2006.

During the last decade, governments did not enact needed educational reforms for better quality, access to, and funding of our educational system, and many people felt high levels of cumulative frustrations, which led them to support the massive protests of 2006 and 2011.

Aspects ofthe educational model in Chile have been questioned, including:

Higher education as a right and hence the end of university fees (end of targeted policies). One of the main demands expressed by student leaders in 2011 was the idea of moving toward totally free higher education, which would mean funding higher education entirely through taxes. This would be a bad solution to the problems of higher education: It is a highly unfair policy since it benefits much more the wealthy segments of society, destroying the fundamental principle of targeted public spending. Almost 25 percent of needed funds would end up being transferred to the 10 percent of the population with the highest incomes, which would receive almost six times more in funds than the 10 percent of lowest income. Likewise, 54 percent of funds would benefit the 30 percent of the population with the highest incomes (the high- and mid-level socioeconomic groups of society). In light of these facts, therefore, the proposed policy of totally free higher education comes to be seen as strongly regressive.

Pressure to end for-profit education in Chile. During the educational debate in 2011 some said it was time to eradicate private education and move toward a single public educational system, where the state plays the role of the sole provider of education. We believe this would be an enormous mistake, as the system will tend to evolve towards a single standard for education that would reduce diversity of viewpoints, freedom of choice, and incentives for creativity and innovation, all of them important elements of progress. Our center-right coalition believes firmly in educational freedom, and in a state that recognizes and promotes the right of the private sector to provide education, as well as the freedom and responsibility of parents to choose the education they want their children to have.

Demand to abolish complementary contributions from parents to schools (a serious restriction to freedom of choice of parents). Complementary contributions from parents to schools play a significant role since they add extra involvement in the role of parents in their children's education. As it is a contribution that comes from their own income, it is useful in order to generate more interest by parents about the quality level of education provided to their children. Moreover, abolishing these complementary contributions will produce a restriction to parents' freedom of choice to pay a certain amount of money to the school to which they want to send their children.

Funding institutions versus funding students. Financing students through state-funded vouchers has the significant benefit of promoting competition among institutions to provide better education, since the more students they recruit, the more funding the state provides through the vouchers.

The government agenda has retained the strengths of our educational model: freedom of choice, public and private provision of education, and a subsidiary role of the state. For preschool and elementaryschool:

More funds per student: extension and expansion of vouchers. Improving quality and equity in education is far from being just a money-based problem. However, increasing the amount of funds that municipal and private schools receive for each one of their students is essential, when the funds are accompanied by the appropriate public policies and initiatives, such as the ones addressed below.

It is worth noting that the government pledged to double the amount of money of the school vouchers within eight years.

We have increased preferential subsidies by 21 percent, directed to all the students of middle and high school that belong to the 40 percent most vulnerable of our society. Additionally, for students in fifth and sixth grades, the preferential subsidy was increased by 50 percent, an increase that went even further for students in seventh and eighth grades, reaching a rise of 100 percent.

New institutions for ensuring quality. Other priorities are to promote quality, transparency, and information through new institutions: a Quality Assurance Agency and an Education Superintendency. These institutions aim to ensure high standards of quality by schools, as well as to guarantee a good use of public resources, conditioning a portion of the subsidies and funding on the successful attainment of basic standards of quality and operation-to be monitored rigorously by the new Education Superintendent.
New policies were introduced to improve teachers' careers by introducing flexibility, higher standards, and incentives.In 2011, we enacted the Quality and Equality in Education Law to make improvements and add flexibility to the teaching profession and strengthen the leadership of our schoolteachers, along with better rewarding the continuous responsibility of being a good teacher. Additionally, this law introduced flexibility and incentives for teaching careers-for the first time, directors had the authority to remove the lowest five percent of the worst performing teachers.

Improvements in the classroom: new quality standards for teachers and Vocation Grant for students of pedagogy. We sent to Congress a law that creates a new program of Quality Standards for Teachers ("Carrera Docente"), which includes new criteria for evaluating and promoting teachers, as well as substantial improvements to salaries based on performance and results rather than years of service, thereby raising the quality standards expected from our teachers.

The government also implemented the Teacher Vocation Grant ("Beca Vocación de Profesor"), which gives a full scholarship and other benefits to students majoring in education (Pedagogy) who have demonstrated academic merit. This will allow the training of talented young people as teachers at no cost to them, with the benefit for our education system that when they graduate, they will go to teach at our municipal and private grant schools. Reforms in tertiary education gave priority to financial support for students and not for institutions.

New scholarships and loans. In higher education, we have implemented new scholarships and a loan system that provides equal amounts of financial support for students from traditional and non-traditional institutions. ("Traditional" universities are those public and private universities that existed before the 1981 reforms that liberalized higher education. All private universities founded after that date are referred to as "non-traditional.")

We have also focused on increasing significantly the number of scholarships available, from the 118,000 that existed in 2009 to 314,000 in 2013. These scholarships are reserved for students from families in the 60 percent of the population with the lowest income. In addition, the minimum score required for the application tests was reduced for those students that come from the 40 percent of lowest income. We will continue raising the number of scholarships to meet our target of 400,000 scholarships by the end of our term in government, which represents an increase of more than three times since 2009.

The government has led a major reform in the student loan system, extending coverage of loans and equalizing financial support for students from traditional and non-traditional institutions.

These improvements mean that every young person in Chile, with the exception of the wealthiest 10 percent, will be eligible for student loans. To prevent these loans from becoming a burden for students, the new system subsidizes loans to reduce interest rates to only 2 percent per year, which is one-third of the former interest rate. This will reduce monthly repayments by almost one half and, once a student starts working, required repayments will never be more than 10 percent of his or her earnings. Additionally, there will be a maximum of 180 monthly installments and, after this period, any remaining debt will be automatically written off.

Poverty

Reforms to reduce poverty are based on values such as autonomy, responsibility, and dignity. The goal is to move away from a welfare state toward "promotional" policies, meaning those policies that can help people overcome vulnerability and poverty by themselves (e.g., by promoting an entrepreneurial society). The foregoing is based on the idea that the pride of a nation cannot rely simply on having a social protection network; rather, it must be based on the idea that this assistance network should be cut down to the minimum: fewer people dependent on government for the shortest possible time. It is certainly reassuring to know that those who pass through the misfortunes of life won't be abandoned; however, it is even more reassuring that social protection networks don't get to act as an obstacle, but rather as a springboard that encourages progress by means of personal effort and capacities, thanks to timely and well-designed assistance from the state.

An example of this is the new social policy designed by this government: the Ethical Family Income ("Ingreso Ético Familiar"), an instrument that plays a key role in the commitment to eradicate extreme poverty by 2014. This is an innovative conditional cash-transfer program, aimed at families in extreme poverty, based on three pillars: dignity, duties, and achievements. Each of these pillars is accompanied by monetary transfers, based on both the poverty level of the families and on their fulfillment of certain duties, goals, and achievements in areas of education, health, and job search. The objective of this program is twofold:

On the one hand, it seeks to supplement incomes for those families living in extreme poverty, giving them access to a minimum level of quality of life. These transfers entail a base transfer and further transfers conditioned to the fulfillment of duties and achievements in education and health, such as health-clinic check-ups for children, school attendance, graduation from high school for adults, and formalization of employment. These conditional transfers, as well as supplementing the incomes of families living in extreme poverty, seek to attack the long-term causes of this condition, generating incentives so that people can themselves overcome their difficult circumstances.

The focus of these transfers is directed to families living in extreme poverty-below the destitution line-and will reach 170,000 homes (640,000 people).

On the other hand, in the "achievements" pillar, the program includes the Female Employment Bonus ("Bono al Trabajo de la Mujer"), which allows families to overcome poverty in an independent and permanent way in the short and medium term. In this way, it recognizes the fact that work is the most effective and sustainable way to overcome poverty, especially in the case of female-led vulnerable households, who have lower participation in the workforce.

The focus of this subsidy has greater coverage, reaching women between the ages of 25 and 60 who belong to the 30 percent most vulnerable households, and will be extended gradually to reach 40 percent of the population by 2015. This will benefit between 300,000 and 400,000 women per year, increasing their salaries by 20 percent, which in practice implies that the minimum wage for women receiving this benefit will be $227,000 Chilean pesos per month (approximately $471). The pursuit of targeted and effective social policies, accompanied by a robust increase in employment and salaries, has allowed poverty rates to fall once again.

Reconstruction Plan: Freedom of Choice and Dignity of Beneficiaries

President Piñera presented the Reconstruction Plan six months after the natural disaster of February 27, 2010, in the city of Concepción. The four-year plan detailed the specific objectives and actions for rebuilding the earthquake-damaged infrastructure and ensuring that Chile would be in a stronger position to face any future adversities. The Reconstruction Plan has focused on addressing the human costs of the disaster, helping victims and respecting their dignity, rather than simply recovering material goods. Costs and deadlines would have been much more easily met with the construction of uniform housing on empty lots.

Within the plan, guiding principles were established for each area of reconstruction. These principles relate to the provision of support to those most affected: respect for the dignity and freedom of choice of the families-who were given the opportunity to rebuild their homes on their original site-and their involvement in the process; re-establishing infrastructure to allow production in Chile to continue at full capacity; the preservation of the heritage of Chile's original people and towns; taking the opportunity of the reconstruction to improve infrastructure in the affected areas, and ensuring that the reconstruction process would have strong moral and social components in addition to the rebuilding of infrastructure.

President Piñera set out a roadmap that would enable the country to overcome the disaster and emerge from it strengthened through an inclusive plan of public, private, and citizen support, where the role of civil society and the private sector has been very significant from the beginning of the emergency.

In fact, organizations of civil society made great contributions to providing assistance to victims, building emergency houses, repairing schools, among many other initiatives. Additionally, the government passed a bill in 2010 to encourage private contributions.

After three years, our nation can feel proud that more than 87 percent of what was destroyed or damaged in the earthquake is now rebuilt or repaired. In the most significant and sensible area, the reconstruction of houses to families who lost their homes, more than 215,000 of a total of 222,000 houses have been either repaired or rebuilt, or are well along in the process of reconstruction.

Reforms to Improve Institutions and Modernize the State

Improving Our Democracy by Increased Participation and Transferring Power to Citizens. During the last 25 years, our country has experienced a continuous reduction of people registered in the electoral system. Between 1988 and 2009, the population with the right to vote increased by 4 million, while people registered to vote rose only by 850,000, which is mainly explained by the very limited number of young people (18 to 29) who enrolled in the electoral registers. In order to advance towards more vitality for our democracy, the government promoted two key improvements.

In 2011, we approved automatic registration and voluntary voting. This initiative allowed us to add more than 5 million people to the electoral roll, and for the first time in our history every Chilean citizen with the right to vote would be included in the electoral registers. With this reform, the presence of people aged 18 to 29 increased more than five times in the electoral roll.

Additionally, automatic registration and voluntary voting is in tune with the notion of personal freedom and responsibility for our own acts, ideas promoted by our sector. We have removed disincentives for a free approach to politics and potential sources of resentment and distance toward it, by removing obstacles for electoral participation and, more important, letting people decide to participate on each electoral process. Besides, this change will force political leaders to make bigger efforts for offering attractive proposals, capable of mobilizing the support of Chilean citizens.

In 2012, we approved a law that introduced primary elections into the democratic system. International experience has demonstrated that introducing primary elections generates in citizens more confidence and interest in politics, since the voter is no longer limited to a choice between candidates pre-selected by political parties, because now the voter has the possibility to get actively involved in the processes by which political parties choose their candidates. This way, a system of primary elections established by law increases citizens' freedom to choose their representatives, and encourages higher levels of competitiveness on nominations for the election of representative authorities.

Moreover, the government is promoting a substantial legislative agenda toward higher levels of transparency and integrity. Our significant advances in transparency and providing public information are reflected in our positive evolution regarding perception of corruption.

Chile's center-right coalition has a deep conviction of the state's role in the development and well-being of society. We are supporters of a state that respects and ensures life, freedom, and other fundamental human rights; a state that fosters wide space for creativity, entrepreneurship, and dynamism of individuals as well as from institutions of civil society, that are the main source of innovation, development, and prosperity. This coalition also strongly believes and acts to build a transparent and efficient state, in service to citizens and subject to their control; a state that makes good use of every collected cent and that, in short, does more using less.

Among the key issues for getting the public administration to operate better and more efficiently, is to provide it with appropriate instances of coordination, so that the efforts can focus effectively on the accomplishment of the objectives set on the government program, without duplications or useless actions, and with rigorous systems of evaluation and control. Example of the above is the creation by this administration of a Delivery Unit, whose purpose is to monitor the fulfillment of predefined specific goals and performance indicators. In addition and in order to simplify processes of coordination, inter-ministerial coordination committees were reduced to four main areas: (1) political, (2) economic development, (3) social development, and (4) infrastructure, territory, and urbanism.

Additionally, with the aim of introducing operational efficiencies in public administration, as well as changing the way it relates with its citizens, throughout a more citizen-oriented administration, important initiatives are taking place.

The main one is "Chile Atiende," a multichannel integrated program that allows people to get any provided service from the state in a one-stop public office (either face-to-face or online), with the consequent savings in time and money for users. At present, Chile Atiende operates with 187 public offices around the country, providing access to more than 70 percent of the country's population. Already 23 different public institutions have joined the program, giving the chance to access more than 150 public services in just one place. Besides, we have implemented the program "Chile sin papeleo" (Chile without red tape), which intends to increase drastically the number of public documents that can be completed online. At the time this program was launched, in August 2012, this was possible only for 25 percent of the long list of different types of paperwork citizens can obtain from the state; the goal is to increase that amount to 60 percent by the end of 2013.

Conclusions

It is well known that during the last 25 years Chile has had positive results on its path of progress. Key factors were the development of an economic model where progress is led by the strength of the private sector, a social policy focused on the most vulnerable people, and the possibility to develop a stable and representative democratic system.

In the second half of the past decade, however, we lost our way mainly due to the implementation of ineffective social and economic policies, and to the lack of capacity to lead the key reforms and improvements-both in our institutions and public policies-that we all know the country needed. Chileans reacted and voted for a change, electing President Piñera and a center-right coalition for the first time in 50 years.

President Piñera and his government pledged to build the basis to reach development in this decade, despite the fact that the country suffered the sixth-most devastating earthquake in recorded history. This major and noble task advances at accelerated pace due to the implementation, first, of key economic reforms that have allowed the country to regain its capacity to grow, generate opportunities through job creation, and stimulate entrepreneurship; second, driving the most ambitious educational reform of the last 30 years; third, putting into practice an innovative social policy where public assistance provides incentives for personal responsibility; and, finally, making a full commitment to deal with the extra challenge of reconstructing the damages and losses made by the earthquake of 2010.

But the significance of this center-right coalition administration goes even further: It marks the end of a long process of democratic consolidation, demonstrating that a center-right coalition is able to govern efficiently, and at the same time improve democracy, promote high levels of tolerance, and work with a deep social focus.

The existence of this government has enabled the emergence of a modern center-right coalition for Chile. A coalition that believes strongly in people, and values freedom and personal responsibility as two sides of the same coin. A coalition that understands that in order to give people the freedom to choose, a society must maintain healthy levels of transparency and competitiveness both in economics and in politics; provide basic securities that can allow taking advantage of opportunities and the enjoyment of freedom; and reduce the excessive socio-economic inequalities without sacrificing the economic growth needed to provide society the opportunity of reaching full development.

-Cristián Larroulet is Chile's minister of the Presidency, the primary advisor to the president, Sebastián Piñera. In 1990, Mr. Larroulet co-founded Libertad y Desarrollo, the most prominent free-market think tank in Chile and a coalition partner of The Heritage Foundation.

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Chile's Path to Development: Key Reforms to Become the First Developed Country in Latin America

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Finding the best path to lead Chile toward economic development has been a continuous task of Chilean governments and leaders during the last century. The mission of building a society of opportunities-where each person has the chance to reach personal fulfillment, and can live with dignity and without poverty-seems now closer than ever before.

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Globalisation

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Chile the most globalized economy in Latin America, says Ernst & Young

James Turley, chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young, admits threat of protectionism but globalization continues to grow

Chile has emerged as the most globalized economy in Latin America and moved up to 25th place in the world, according to global consulting firm Ernst & Young. Chile is among the countries to improve their position despite global economic uncertainty, the firm's annual Globalization Index found.

"Unlike other countries, the policies of Chilean governments have promoted openness in times of turbulence, taking the sufficient precautions so the economic turmoil does not hit the country hard," Cristián Lefevre, senior partner of Ernst & Young Chile, told El Mercurio.

The globalization measurement is based on five factors: foreign trade, capital movement, exchange of technology and ideas, labour movement, and cultural integration.

Chile's greatest strength in 2011 was the arrival of foreign capital, which ranked fourth globally, behind Ireland, Hong Kong and Belgium. Chile also scored high in foreign trade.

Technology and cultural integration were cited as the country's weakest points, with both ranking well below Singapore and Hong Kong, the leaders in those categories.

In Latin America, however, Chile remains the pacesetter. Mexico is the closest nation to Chile in terms of globalization, coming in the 36th position, followed by Colombia (43), Brazil (47), Ecuador (49) and Argentina (50).

"We have gone further than other nations who opened themselves later to the world economy," Lefevre said. "In fact, today Chile is one of the countries that has the most trade agreements worldwide, including among relevant economies like the US, the European Union and China."

In 2012, Chile looks poised to continue its ascension with emerging markets projected to be the biggest contributors to the predicted global growth of 3.4%. The world growth projection was weighed down by the developed economies of the United States (2.4%) and the European Union (0%), according to the Ernst & Young report. The World Bank has predicted 4.1% GDP growth for Chile this year.

With developing countries expected to continue this pattern of global growth, Ernst & Young reported that over the long-term, developing countries could contribute 70% of total global growth, overtaking current developed nations.

Ernst & Young's Globalization Index takes the 60 countries with the highest GDP and ranks them based on performance in the mentioned categories. The firm also surveys a thousand business executives to discover global trends and concerns for incorporation in the report.

Among the trends from 2011 were continued developments in globalization despite a stressed economy. The chief concern going forward, according to the business leaders, is the threat of protectionism.

Ninety percent of the executives consulted reportedly fear an increase in protectionist policies, especially if the global economy were to face another recession.

James Turley, chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young, admits that the threat of protectionism is real, but points out that globalization continued to grow in 2011 despite economic concerns.

"Businesses and governments have to continue to make the case for globalization as a positive force for economic and social good and avoid any descent into protectionism," Turley told the press.
By Payton Guion - The Santiago Times

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Chile the most globalized economy in Latin America, says Ernst & Young

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Chile has emerged as the most globalized economy in Latin America and moved up to 25th place in the world, according to global consulting firm Ernst & Young. Chile is among the countries to improve their position despite global economic uncertainty, the firm's annual Globalization Index found.