The chief economist of the Latin America and the Caribbean region of the World Bank (WB), William Maloney, highlighted that, despite the situation of recent years, Paraguay returned to pre-pandemic levels.
This was stated in the framework of his presentation at the Paraguay Keynote Conference, Evaluation 2022 – Perspectives 2023 “Structural reforms as engines of sustainable growth.”
The panel also featured a presentation by the Minister of Finance, Oscar Llamosas, and the President of the Central Bank of Paraguay (BCP), José Cantero. The event took place this morning in the BCP convention room.
In this sense, Maloney explained that the region is recovering and returning to its levels prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and how it is dealing with the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war.
In this sense, he highlighted that Latin America and the Caribbean have so far made great progress, obtaining considerable growth, and as a result of this the region has important achievements.
On the Paraguayan side, he said that most countries had to spend a lot to counteract the effects of the pandemic, but Paraguay did a great job to return to the levels it had in 2019.
Likewise, he indicated that the country has great growth expectations for next year, but there is still a whole agenda of reforms to be implemented to continue growing as a country and region.
Along the same lines, Maloney expressed that the war context in Ukraine affected the economy, generating inflation in fuel and food, mainly impacting the most vulnerable population not only in Paraguay, but in all of Latin America. However, the social indicators have recovered to a great extent, but he stressed that the long-term consequences require public policies that help make this recovery sustainable.