Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced his US$8.43 billion plan on Friday to finance Chile’s reconstruction with tax increases, new government debt and withdrawals from the country’s copper savings.
Pinera announced the four-year plan from the docks of the ravaged port of Coronel, which was hit by a tsunami after the Feb. 27 earthquake.
The president said one phase of his government’s response was ending, as basic services returned to the affected southern regions and families recovered the remains of the nearly 500 dead. But the sense of urgency remains.
“We are now racing against the winter rains,” Pinera said in imposing a deadline to provide 40,000 temporary shelters by June, when winter arrives in the southern hemisphere.
The natural disaster will cost Chile an estimated US$30 billion, more than two-thirds of which will be shouldered by the private sector and insurance companies.
Pinera, who assumed office on March 11, proposed a temporary increase of the corporate tax rate and copper royalties paid by the country’s major mining operations, as a well as a permanent increase of tobacco and high-end real estate taxes.
He did not specify how much local and foreign debt Chile would issue or how much the country would draw on the sovereign wealth fund that has grown to US$11 billion with the copper boom in recent years.
The proposed taxes would raise some US$3.14 billion for the four-year plan, and Pinera has promised cuts in government spending to provide an additional US$733 billion during that period.
The president also has suggested that Chile could sell state-owned businesses not tied to its core mining concerns, such as its 40 percent interest in the energy company Edelnor, valued at nearly US$900 million.
Pinera’s first major legislative proposal opened cracks in the political unity that marked his first month in office.
The center-left opposition accused the billionaire president of “privatizing the reconstruction” after he proposed tax incentives for private donations that would add roughly US$155 million to public recovery efforts.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS