Under Sebastián Piñera, Chilean GDP grows 17.2% in third quarter

Chile’s central bank announced on Thursday that the nation’s economy grew by 17.2 percent in the third quarter of 2021, exceeding previous government forecasts.

The period from July through September saw the economy grow by 4.9 percent compared to the previous quarter, Reuters reported.

President Sebastián Piñera, whose administration managed one of Latin America’s most successful coronavirus pandemic recoveries, announced last week that the economy was set to grow by 11 percent this year.

Economic activity in Chile, the world’s largest copper producer, has benefitted from high demand for red metal copper – but also from legislation which allowed Chileans to withdraw personal funds from their pensions throughout the crisis.

The Chilean Pension Fund Administrators (AFP) is a private pension system that has helped Chile become one of Latin America’s strongest economies since its creation in 1981. Although a fourth round of withdrawals was recently shot down by the Chilean senate, the first three rounds helped boost consumer spending, ultimately providing the COVID-19 economy a lifeline.

Chileans will head to the polls on Sunday for the first round of the presidential election and Chileans will ultimately have to decide between frontrunners from opposite sides of Chile’s notoriously polarized political camps.

President Piñera is not seeking reelection.

Although Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student leader who has made inroads with the Communist Party, was previously favored to win, conservative Antonio Kast – a champion of “liberty, the rule of law and the family” – has recently surged in the polls.