- Population: 16.9 million. The urban population is about 89%. Mestizos (Europeans and Indians) account for 66% of the total Chilean population, Europeans 26%, Indians 6%, other 2%.
- Area: 756,102 sq km (and more than 6,300 km of coastline).
- Capital: Santiago (about 6 million inhabitants).
- Languages: Spanish is the official language.
- Religion: Catholic (70%), evangelicals (15.1%).
- Life expectancy: 74.5 years for men, 81 for women.
- Currency: Chilean peso.
- Government: presidential democracy.
- Head of State: Sebastián Piñera, the first right-wing president since the fall of Pinochet, and billionaire businessman dubbed the "Chilean Berlusconi" (since March 2010).
- Resources: copper (first world producer) and mining (gold, silver, iron), agriculture and agribusiness, fishing (3rd in the world, second to the salmon), and also wood and cellulose.
- Unemployment rate: around 7.3%.
- Growth rate: 4%.
- Heritage Sites UNESCO World: Park Rapa Nui (1995) on Easter Island, the churches of Chiloe Island (2000), the historic port city of Valparaíso (2003) the Saltpeter Works Humberstone and Santa Laura (2005) near Iquique, and the mining town of Sewell (2006).
Economy
For twenty years, the Chilean economy shows high performance results. In the 1990s, its annual growth hovered around 8%. From 2000, she began to oscillate between 2 and 6% per year, reaching nearly 5% in 2010. The trade balance surplus.
The causes of this "exception Chilean" back in part to the coup of 1973, when the country embarked on a policy of ultra-liberalism, privatization and opening the country to international competition.
Chile, the first world producer of copper, has also benefited from very favorable conditions, with the sharp increase in world demand for minerals and soaring prices. Meanwhile, the country has developed a policy of "all-out trade agreement" (free trade agreements). It now takes a quarter of its GDP from exports.
Over 20 billion dollars has been placed in an SWF in which it was possible to draw to face the global economic crisis: the stimulus Chile was able to be one of the largest in the world.
The Chilean economy is very sensitive to demand conditions and international.
Strong economic growth, if it has reduced unemployment, was not accompanied by any reduction of social inequalities. Quite the opposite: the rate of income distribution in Chile is among the worst in emerging countries. A potentially explosive situation. The pillars of the economy are mining, agriculture and agro-industry, fisheries, wood and cellulose.
Human rights
Died December 10, 2006, Augusto Pinochet has not been imprisoned for crimes he committed during his dictatorship. The lengthy court proceedings, which resulted in the lifting of his immunity shortly before his death, however, will help Chile to overcome the vestiges of the political system inherited from the military dictatorship. Certainly the issues of reparations and the judgment of the torturers and contractors are still tough.
Contemporary Chile is also confronted with discrimination against Native American peoples, like the Mapuche. Victims of expropriation on the part of landowners and businesses, they face a constant legal harassment and repression of the police during their demonstrations.
- Area: 756,102 sq km (and more than 6,300 km of coastline).
- Capital: Santiago (about 6 million inhabitants).
- Languages: Spanish is the official language.
- Religion: Catholic (70%), evangelicals (15.1%).
- Life expectancy: 74.5 years for men, 81 for women.
- Currency: Chilean peso.
- Government: presidential democracy.
- Head of State: Sebastián Piñera, the first right-wing president since the fall of Pinochet, and billionaire businessman dubbed the "Chilean Berlusconi" (since March 2010).
- Resources: copper (first world producer) and mining (gold, silver, iron), agriculture and agribusiness, fishing (3rd in the world, second to the salmon), and also wood and cellulose.
- Unemployment rate: around 7.3%.
- Growth rate: 4%.
- Heritage Sites UNESCO World: Park Rapa Nui (1995) on Easter Island, the churches of Chiloe Island (2000), the historic port city of Valparaíso (2003) the Saltpeter Works Humberstone and Santa Laura (2005) near Iquique, and the mining town of Sewell (2006).
Economy
For twenty years, the Chilean economy shows high performance results. In the 1990s, its annual growth hovered around 8%. From 2000, she began to oscillate between 2 and 6% per year, reaching nearly 5% in 2010. The trade balance surplus.
The causes of this "exception Chilean" back in part to the coup of 1973, when the country embarked on a policy of ultra-liberalism, privatization and opening the country to international competition.
Chile, the first world producer of copper, has also benefited from very favorable conditions, with the sharp increase in world demand for minerals and soaring prices. Meanwhile, the country has developed a policy of "all-out trade agreement" (free trade agreements). It now takes a quarter of its GDP from exports.
Over 20 billion dollars has been placed in an SWF in which it was possible to draw to face the global economic crisis: the stimulus Chile was able to be one of the largest in the world.
The Chilean economy is very sensitive to demand conditions and international.
Strong economic growth, if it has reduced unemployment, was not accompanied by any reduction of social inequalities. Quite the opposite: the rate of income distribution in Chile is among the worst in emerging countries. A potentially explosive situation. The pillars of the economy are mining, agriculture and agro-industry, fisheries, wood and cellulose.
Human rights
Died December 10, 2006, Augusto Pinochet has not been imprisoned for crimes he committed during his dictatorship. The lengthy court proceedings, which resulted in the lifting of his immunity shortly before his death, however, will help Chile to overcome the vestiges of the political system inherited from the military dictatorship. Certainly the issues of reparations and the judgment of the torturers and contractors are still tough.
Contemporary Chile is also confronted with discrimination against Native American peoples, like the Mapuche. Victims of expropriation on the part of landowners and businesses, they face a constant legal harassment and repression of the police during their demonstrations.
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