Authorities and Experts Will Assess Tax Reform Aimed at Increasing Fiscal Revenues and Improving Equality

(27 February 2013) On 5 and 6 March at the ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile, experts and authorities from several countries will discuss tax reforms aimed at increasing fiscal revenues and improving equality in the region's tax systems, at the 25th Regional seminar on fiscal policy.

The high-level meeting, which is in its 25th year, is organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), with support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The Seminar will be opened on Tuesday 5 March at 9.00 a.m. by Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, and the opening session will include presentations from Felipe Larraín, Chilean Finance Minister, and Carlos Cáceres, Minister of Finance in El Salvador. In the closing session of 6 March Fernando Lorenzo, Minister of Economy and Finance of Uruguay, will also be present.

Participants will include renowned specialists from Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe, who will discuss the need to renew the fiscal covenant in terms of macroeconomics, public revenues for development, transparency of public spending and the link with the social contract.

The meeting is sponsored by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), and the International Tax Compact (ITC).

The 25th Regional seminar of fiscal policy will be accompanied by a Workshop on Public Finances, which will also be held at the ECLAC headquarters on Thursday 7 March, to examine recent reform in terms of decentralized public revenues and spending - which is a vital component of sustainable fiscal covenants.

The media are invited to attend the seminar, which will take place at the ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile (Av. Dag Hammarskjöld 3477, Vitacura).

Any queries should be sent to the ECLAC Public Information and Web Services Section.

E-mail: prensa@cepal.org; Telphone: (56 2) 2210 2040.

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