La Paz: Bolivian President Luis Arce has declined recommendations from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) aimed at redirecting the country’s economy, and reaffirmed the independence and efficacy of the economic model followed by his government.
“Our ‘Economic, Social, Communitary, Productive Model’ is sovereign and continues to demonstrate its success in reducing social and economic inequalities,” Arce said in a social media post on Friday.
“That is why we do not accept the proposals of the #IMF, which would be detrimental to the people, especially the working class,” the President added.
In a report released on Thursday, the IMF recommended Bolivia reassess the exchange rate between its national currency and the US dollar, which has remained the same since 2011, and government subsidies of fuel and certain economic sectors.
In response to the report, Minister of Economy and Public Finance, Marcelo Montenegro, said the IMF’s recommendations regarding subsidies were contradictory and the government had no plans to follow them.
He dismissed the IMF’s formulas as outdated, saying they were applied in past decades by neo-liberal governments, but are no longer viable today, especially in Bolivia.
The stable exchange rate is due to the national currency’s strength, said Montenegro, stressing that each country must formulate and apply its own economic and financial policy in a sovereign manner, unfettered by the IMF.
–IANS