Chile‘s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew 11.7% in 2021, the highest level in the country’s history series. According to the Chilean Central Bank, growth took place on a repressed basis – Chile’s economy plummeted 5.8% in 2020 – and was leveraged by the gradual opening of business in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chile was the country that advanced the fastest with vaccination, right at the beginning of the campaign, in Latin America.
The social benefits released exceptionally to mitigate the effects of the health crisis were one more factor in helping household consumption and the Chilean economic recovery.
“The activities with the greatest impact on GDP growth were commerce and personal services, sectors particularly favored by the greater opening of the economy and the increase in demand,” wrote the monetary authority. In the fourth quarter alone, the advance was 12%.
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The official forecast for growth in 2022 is not yet known. Chile‘s new president Gabriel Boric said the country would revise the previous administration’s expectation of 3.5%.
