N. H. Gill
Dec. 23, 2020

The International Monetary Fund approved $2 billion to help Ecuador “restore macroeconomic stability and pursue the unfinished structural agenda,” the fund said Dec. 23, 2020 in a statement on its website.

IMF Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair, Antoinette Sayeh, said the economy was showing “nascent signs of economic recovery.” Gross domestic product is estimated to have shrunk 9.5 percent in 2020, the report said. The IMF supports new anti-corruption legislation, support for dollarization, the approval of “ambitious and progressive tax reform,” accordin to the report.

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno’s implementation of a series of IMF recommendations in October 2019, including canceling popular fuel subsidies, set off two weeks of protests that forced the government to flee the captial when protestors laid seige to Quito. The protests lasted about two weeks and ended with the govenment restoring fuel subsidies.

Image: Pieter Breughel, The tax-collector’s office, public domain.