Ecuador lost at least 1,000 million dollars due to the recent indigenous protests, the manager of the Central Bank, Guillermo Avellán, said on Monday, after 18 days of anti-government demonstrations that affected different sectors, including the oil sector.
“The losses total an amount of 1,000 million dollars; 775 million correspond to the private sector and 225 million correspond to losses in the state sector, specifically due to the oil sector,” the official explained to the Teleamazonas channel.
Ecuador produced 520,000 barrels per day (bd) of crude as of June 12, a day before the start of roadblock protests that shut down more than 1,000 wells in the Amazon, according to the government.
Oil production, the country’s main export item, fell by more than half during the demonstrations.
On Thursday, the government and indigenous people signed the so-called “peace act” to end the protests, as a result of which oil extraction recovered to 461,600 bpd as of Sunday, according to the Ministry of Energy.
Avellán said that before the protests, led by the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie), the Central Bank even “planned to revise its economic forecast upwards, which is currently 2.8%.”
“Local sales have been increasing very significantly and that is the rate we should have in the second half so that the impact of the demonstrations can be minimized” in the economic improvement, he added.
The interannual growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Ecuador was 3.8% in the first quarter of 2022 in relation to the same period of 2021. From January to March last it was 0.4% compared to the period from October to December from last year.
The Conaie, which participated in riots that caused the fall of three presidents between 1997 and 2005, demanded a reduction of up to 21% in the prices of the most used fuels, as well as a moratorium on the payment of peasant credits with the bank and the suspension of mining and oil activities in native territories.
The demonstrations, which left six dead and more than 600 injured, ceased after the Executive reduced fuel by up to 8%.
According to Avellán, the country will have to allocate more than 3,000 million dollars a year to subsidize fuel. After the agreed reductions, a gallon of diesel costs 1.75 dollars while ordinary gasoline costs 2.40.
