Mario Marcel: Chile's March 2020 Monetary Policy Report

Presentation by Mr Mario Marcel, Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, before the Finance Committee of the Honorable Senate of the Republic, Santiago de Chile, 1 April 2020.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

1. Introduction

Mr President of the Senate's Finance Committee, Senator Jorge Pizarro; Senators members of the Committee, ladies, gentlemen,

Thank you for your invitation to the Board of the Central Bank of Chile (CBC) to present our view on recent macroeconomic developments, its outlook and implications for monetary policy. This Monetary Policy Report is seeing the light in unprecedented circumstances, both because of the worldwide sanitary emergency and because of the economic consequences of the policy responses to stop the spread of COVID-19 in many countries. Unprecedented also because the need to restrict social contact has prevented us from presenting this Report normally instead of by this remote connection.

The Monetary Policy Report we released this morning shows the dramatic change in the economic scenario that our country and the entire world are confronting. The global spread of COVID-19, the measures that have been adopted to contain it and the uncertainty about its reach have been reflected in plummeting stock markets and asset prices around the world, triggering a global economic recession in 2020.