For old emerging-market hands, the sudden jump in the Chilean peso has a facile explanation on first blush: surging copper prices. And this is certainly part of the story, but there’s a much bigger phenomenon that’s supporting the rally. The government’s vaccination campaign is rapidly gaining speed, stoking expectations that the economy will boom later in the year and interest rates will start to climb.
In a region that has been decimated by the pandemic and has made precious little headway in vaccination efforts, Chile stands as a clear outlier. With 15 doses administered per 100 people, the country has achieved a rate that is multiples of its closest Latin American peers — Brazil and Costa Rica — and higher than that of all but eight nations in the world, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker.
Click here to keep reading: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-22/chile-peso-joins-pound-dollar-on-early-vaccination-winners-list
