Rosanna Costa: Chile in the new global scenario

Presentation by Ms Rosanna Costa, Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, at the Chile Day, New York City, 22 May 2025.

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

Good morning. Thank you to InBest and the sponsors for organizing this event and for holding this Chile Day here in New York year after year. This is a special year for the Central Bank of Chile, as we celebrate our centenary. This anniversary finds us strengthened as an autonomous institution, with clearly defined objectives and a consolidated reputation. Our daily task is focused on maintaining a sound economy, with controlled inflation, a normal functioning of the payment system and a watchful eye on the behavior of the markets in its role of safeguarding financial stability.

This year, from a macroeconomic and financial standpoint, will be centered around the ongoing escalation of trade tensions, which has given way to a considerable increase in global uncertainty. This is a major challenge for a small, globally open economy like ours.

Part of the doubts focus on how the world economy will absorb the higher tariffs imposed by the United States. This includes their impact on trade flows, production and distribution chains and, consequently, economic growth, inflation, and the evolution of financial markets. All this, bearing in mind that these tensions are part of a world that was already dragging along other risks, such as the high level of sovereign debt and a complex and strained geopolitical scenario.

Over the last forty years, the Chilean economy has been building an institutional framework that has contributed to its stability and to becoming a reliable trade and financial partner. We are a small and open economy that has signed thirty trade agreements with economies that account for nearly 90% of the world's GDP, in addition to a wide range of trade and investment commitments. This is proof of our vocation of openness to the world, the only way to expand our markets and take full advantage of our comparative advantages, which has benefited us all these years.