ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin America and : Executive Secretary Meets with President of Guatemala

The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, was received on Friday, January 15, by Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, who took office this week and with whom she spoke about the challenges facing the Central American country in terms of maintaining current growth, of about 4%, and achieving greater levels of equality and social inclusion.

On Thursday, January 14, the most senior official from this United Nations regional organization-accompanied by the Director of ECLAC's Subregional Headquarters in Mexico, Hugo Beteta-was present at Guatemala's Congress during the inauguration of Jimmy Morales as President and Jafeth Cabrera as the country's Vice President. She also attended the swearing-in ceremony of the Government's new cabinet members, which took place in the National Palace of Culture.

During a meeting on Friday, Alicia Bárcena spoke with Jimmy Morales (who won the last election in a second round of balloting in October) regarding the need to spearhead a new model of economic development that promotes social inclusion and helps fight poverty, which ECLAC's figures show affects about half of the Guatemalan population.

The senior United Nations official said that this model must be based on a policy of productive transformation with technological innovation and competitiveness to create decent and quality employment, as well as on a budgetary scheme that is more flexible and allows the country to increase its tax revenue, which in 2013 represented 13% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), compared with an average of 21.3% in Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole.

ECLAC calculates that Guatemala ended 2015 with growth of 3.9% and estimates that this pace will hold steady in 2016, when the expansion is forecast at 4.0%, according to figures from the Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2015, which was released in December.

During the conversation it was discussed that Guatemala should boost its domestic regional development, reducing the costs of logistics, security, electricity and the Internet, while also adopting a foreign policy that integrates the areas of trade, investment, culture and politics and that reassumes leadership in regional integration processes.

During her stay in Guatemala, Alicia Bárcena also participated along with the Guatemalan diplomat Edmond Mulet, Chef de Cabinet of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in bilateral meetings with the presidents of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solís, and of the Dominican Republic, Danilo Medina, as well as with the Foreign Ministers of Colombia, María Ángela Holguín, and Mexico, Claudia Ruiz Massieu. Her agenda also included a gathering with officials from the U.N. system in Guatemala.