QUITO, April 23 (Reuters) – Ecuador’s National Assembly late on Thursday approved a law granting autonomy to the Andean country’s central bank, a move celebrated by President Lenin Moreno’s government on Friday as a step toward economic stability.
Moreno’s market-friendly administration had pushed the reform as a way to prevent future governments from draining the bank’s reserves to finance public spending, a practice his allies allege was common during former leftist President Rafael Correa’s administration.
Economy Minister Mauricio Pozo told local radio on Friday that the measure would help protect Ecuador’s dollarized economic model.
“This is a very important step forward for stability, for dollarization, for the economy,” Pozo said.
The bill passed with the support of 86 of the 135 lawmakers present in the Thursday session. Forty-one lawmakers voted against the proposal, labeling it a privatization of the central bank.
The reform had been a condition of the $6.5 billion package the South American country reached last year with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after one of the region’s worst coronavirus outbreaks and the plunge in crude prices reduced the oil-exporting country’s government revenue.
Moreno leaves office on May 24. His successor, president-elect Guillermo Lasso, is expected to broadly continue his market-friendly policies, though Lasso has voiced opposition to an IMF proposal to raise some taxes to help the government reduce its budget deficit. (Reporting by Alexandra Valencia Writing by Luc Cohen, Editing by Louise Heavens)
