Chile's economy is stable and thriving. The market stimulates free competition and trade openness, while the authorities care for and promote fiscal discipline. Growth over the last decade has averaged close to 5% per year.
This sustained growth has allowed the country to sign Free Trade Agreements with markets that represent almost two-thirds of the world's population. This vast network of treaties has given rise to veritable chains of international cooperation and production. Thus, it deploys a multiplicity of products and services that are attractive for their quality, variety and added value.
Leading traditional industries, such as agriculture, wine, fishing or mining, faced with a new, more innovative and sustainable focus, and to which is added the growth of areas in which the talent of Chileans is even more revealed, such as architecture; engineering; the environment; information and communication technologies and the creative industries in general.
A varied offer that responds to the continuous, clear and consistent creation of an open, solid and at the same time flexible economy, built on the basis of a transparent and smooth institutional climate. Honesty and stability are the driving force behind dynamic and consistent development.
The best partners of growth over the past decade are fiscal responsibility and social programs that have significantly reduced poverty, quadrupling the number of young people entering universities. In order to ensure that economic success benefits all the inhabitants of the country, reforms with a strong social emphasis are implemented. These are initiatives in the different areas of socio-economic activity. Some of the most relevant are the AUGE Plan (Universal Access for Comprehensive Benefits and Explicit Guarantees), a public health system that guarantees more and better coverage to all Chileans, and the 6-month postnatal period for all workers in the country.
The economy also shows progress in the construction of social housing and in extensive programs for access to education. Poverty rates have fallen significantly in fifteen years, from 38% in 1990 to 14.4% in 2011. Inequity in the distribution of income still persists, a task that unites everyone in the search for permanent solutions to inequality.
A resolute reserve-saving policy supports the stability of the economy and makes it possible to cope with periods of crisis affecting the world economy.
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