The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) meeting in Washington, which Finance and Economy Minister Larry Howai attended, has called for "tax reforms to expand social policies" in Latin American and the Caribbean. Chaired this year by Colombia at IDB headquarters Washington, the meeting is an "annual dialogue among the ministers on issues that are strategic to the region," a statement from the agency said.
Finance ministers exchanged ideas on the challenges that the region faces amid an uncertain macroeconomic context, and assessed prospects for encouraging greater economic integration and regional co-operation.
Delegates from 22 countries were joined at the meeting by senior officials from multilateral organisations including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the IDB, CAF-Development Bank of Latin America and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac). This was the sixth meeting of finance ministers from the Americas.
Chair of the meeting, Colombia's Minister of Finance and Public Credit Mauricio C�rdenas said: "In a less favourable environment of the world economy and greater uncertainty, strong fundamentals and solid fiscal and monetary frameworks have helped some countries, but that is not enough.
Without compromising fiscal discipline, we must look for ways to increase public and private investment, especially in infrastructure; undertake tax reforms to expand social policies; better prioritize and target public spending to make it more effective; and promote regional integration to better cope with a less favorable world economy."
IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno, during the opening session of the meeting. urged governments to work hand in hand with the private sector to boost productivity in the region."Achieving sustainable and inclusive growth will entail reallocating resources to more productive sectors and businesses, making our markets more flexible, enhancing the state's ability to operate more efficiently each day, and raising the quality of education and accelerating social inclusion," he said.
Later in the meeting, participants heard from US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
Shortly after the G-20 summit of 2008 and in response to the economic and financial crisis raging at the time, leaders of the hemisphere agreed to hold an annual political dialogue to discuss long-term development issues and promote economic integration and co-operation.
This established the annual meetings of finance ministers of the Americas and the Caribbean. Earlier meetings were presided over by Mexico, Chile, Peru and Canada. The IDB acts as technical secretariat by supporting the preparation and overall coordination of the meetings.