Chilean president touts strong economic growth

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera on Monday hailed the country's high economic growth of 6.3 percent last year and its solid creation of jobs. "It's a tremendous satisfaction to me, and a real source of joy to see how Chile, in the last two years of our government, has been among the countries with the highest economic growth in the world," said Pinera, adding that 600,000 new jobs had been created in the last two years. Speaking just days before the 2nd anniversary of his presidency, which began on March 11, 2010, Pinera said that even though the prospects for global economic recovery remained unclear, these positive indicators offered Chileans hope of finding their way out of the economic crisis that has engulfed the world in the last few years. "There are few countries in the world that have grown more than an average of 6 percent" and there were few countries in the world that amid the world economic crisis had been able to create so many new jobs as Chile had, he said. The Chilean government has forecast that the country's economy would grow between 4 and 4.5 percent in 2012, slightly lower than earlier forecasts due to the ongoing uncertainties over the debt crises in the United States and Europe.