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Ecuador expects to grow by 0.3 percent in 2016 due to earthquake: President

Xinhua, June 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

The devastating 7.8 earthquake which hit Ecuador in April caused so much economic devastation that the country will only grow at 0.3 percent, said President Rafael Correa Saturday from the town of Pedernales, in the province of Manabi, one of the worst-hit areas.

According to Correa, Ecuador's central bank had predicted growth of 1 percent of GDP before the incident but "the earthquake will cause us to lose another 0.7 percent."

"However, we will continue pressing with full steam ahead as we have been doing," vowed the president, while he admitted the earthquake had devastated the fishing, shrimping and tourism industries, which are among Ecuador's main sources of income.

The province of Manabi is also expected to drop about 10 percent of its GDP this year as a result while 3.4 percent of its workforce have lost their work, making up around 22,000 lost jobs.

"We will get these jobs back, we will bring Manabi out of this, Esmeralda (another affected province) out of this, and the whole country," he said.

According to the latest government figures, the reconstruction will cost 3.34 billion U.S. dollars, of which the state will cover 67 percent and the private sector 33 percent.

On June 1, the government also activated new financial measures to raise funds, including raising VAT from 12 to 14 percent, and an extra tax worth one day of salary for those with salaries over 1,000 U.S. dollars a month. Enditem