The economist Rafael Espinal considered yesterday that the main challenges facing the country for next year are to carry out a fiscal reform to increase income, reduce the electricity deficit, increase public investment and keep the covid-19 pandemic at bay.
He specified that the main challenge facing the country and all national sectors is to reach a fiscal reform that can reduce the electricity deficit.
The professor from the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo (Intec) said that a fiscal reform, with a decrease in the electricity deficit, would be the main challenge facing the government for 2022 ”.
He affirmed that the country must maintain economic growth in an environment of world inflation that has been present in the country for a year.
He explained that the control of this inflation does not depend on the actions of the government or the monetary policy of the Central Bank, but on external factors.
He considered that economic growth accompanied by inflation, although on the one hand it favors well-being, on the other it is the worst tax for the population.
The government, he said, should try to keep up the pace of investment, especially public investment, especially in drinking water infrastructures, roads and hospitals, which this year has had a slower pace due to the situation of the pandemic and the demands of the Law of Purchases and Contracts.
He believes that in 2022 investment should continue its growth rate, which improved a lot at the end of this year.
Regarding the rise in interest rates by the United States Federal Reserve for 2022, Espinal said that the Central Bank will have to adjust the interest rate, which implies a lower rate of economic growth of the private sectors than they take the loans necessary for investment.
“When there is inflation, the quality of savings deteriorates and, therefore, there is a tendency to increase the interest rate to guarantee that profitability,” he said. He expressed that inflation and the rate are elements that go together.
