LatinNews Daily - 06 September 2018

Colombia: Colombia’s finance minister, Alberto Carrasquilla, has announced that the new government led by President Iván Duque seeks to reduce government spending by 7.5%-10% in the 2019 government budget to reduce the fiscal deficit. Carrasquilla’s comments come as the draft 2019 budget prepared by the previous administration led by President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) is currently being debated in Colombia’s congress. President Duque has previously said the 2019 draft budget has a Col$25trn (US$8.06bn) deficit that his administration would seek to plug. Carrasquilla said that in a bid to achieve this the new government will propose implementing austerity measures such as cutting spending on officials’ expenses and service provision contracts. Carrasquilla also said that the Duque administration will seek to implement a tax reform to increase tax revenue.

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