An “automatic safeguard,” Minister of Foreign Trade Juan Carlos Cassinelli called the mechanism used by the government to balance the BOP with the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) and to active the alarm when neighboring countries devalue their currencies. The official disclosed this during a meeting with representatives of the Ecuadorian Business Committee (CEE for its Spanish acronym).
After analysis, Cassinelli has concluded that the country has a negative balance of payments, outside the oil issue, of more than $ 1,500 million with the CAN and that Ecuador is at a disadvantage against member countries that are not dollarized.
He explained that this mechanism would allow them, in the event that other countries devalue their currencies, to have an automatic measure that protects domestic production.
Pablo Arosemena, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Guayaquil, rejected the approach of Cassinelli noting that “it is a shot in the shoe” to more safeguards and furthermore, he described safeguards that are already in force and were extended until 2014 as “an atrocity in times of crisis.”
