AUTHORITIES AND EXPERTS WILL DEBATE ABOUT FISCAL POLICY, DEBT AND GROWTH IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Santiago, January 17- Fiscal authorities from the central banks and economy and finance ministries of several Latin American countries and Spain will meet with international experts at the XXVI Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy, which will be held at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile.

The annual meeting, which promotes the discussion of current affairs in the field of public finances and the role of the State in the region's economies, will take place on January 20-21. The event will be inaugurated on Monday, January 20, at 9:00 a.m. by Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of ECLAC.

The meeting is organized by ECLAC and co-sponsored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), The World Bank (WB), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with the support of Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The seminar's opening session will address the issues of fiscal policy, debt and growth, and proposals will be presented that aim to construct quality public finances, incorporating the objectives of fiscal sustainability as well as income distribution and economic growth.

During that session ECLAC will present the Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2014, which summarizes the fiscal situation in the region and addresses timely topics, such as the relationship of fiscal policy to income distribution and the initiatives that seek to improve the quality and transparency of public spending.

At the second session on fiscal income, natural resources and green taxes, the third edition of the report Revenue Statistics in Latin America 1990-2012 will be unveiled, a joint publication of the OECD, ECLAC and the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT), which systematizes regional tax statistics and contains a special chapter on fiscal income and basic products.

The seminar will end on Tuesday, January 21, with two sessions on the quality of public spending-including the environmental perspective-and the transparency of public finances.

On Wednesday, January 22, the Public Finance Workshop 2014 will be held to examine the effects of fiscal action on income distribution and the policies needed to improve them, both in terms of taxes and public spending.

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