Fynsa
In cycling—whether road racing, time trials, or similar disciplines—one of the most challenging aspects is riding into a headwind. Some might disagree and say that a crosswind is worse, due to the risk of falling, but the truth is that a headwind not only affects physical performance—since your speed at a given effort is significantly lower—but also mental performance, as it is tremendously discouraging.
I think this is roughly what we’re facing right now as an economy. The February Imacec again showed a negative year-over-year change (-0.3%), which, unlike the previous month, was extremely surprising. January had a fairly demanding comparison base, but for the second month of the year, the situation was far from that, and there were no differences in terms of business days.
Breaking it down, we can also observe something quite interesting. Recently, most of the results that fell short of expectations had one thing in common: a rather poor performance in the mining sector, while the rest of the sectors, though not particularly strong, showed a more favorable trend. Although the mining sector’s negative impact remains evident this time around (for the ninth consecutive month), for the second consecutive month the negative impact of the other sectors is equal to or greater than that of the mining sector. This hadn’t happened in at least a year and a half, and while we still don’t see any reason to be overly alarmed, we believe there are several factors to monitor.
First, let’s not lose sight of the fact that these figures are from February; in other words, they reflect a context in which the international outlook was positive, growth estimates for our trading partners were being revised upward, the terms of trade were favorable, and domestic expectations were showing steady improvement. Second, private consumption has been disappointing, which can be explained by a significant drop in Argentine tourism, of a magnitude similar to the increase observed during 2025. If this trend continues, consumption is unlikely to show signs of improvement in the coming months, unless it is quickly offset by domestic consumption—which, at least so far, has not happened. Finally, looking ahead, Chile faces an uncertain outlook, with a surprising and abrupt pass-through of energy costs to households and businesses, an employment recovery not yet reflected in the data, and less favorable prospects amid international uncertainty. This has effects on both domestic and external demand, and it would be naive to pretend that this would not affect economic activity, even if the effects were temporary.
Consequently, given both the disappointing data we have seen so far and the deterioration in the Chilean economy’s fundamentals, we have lowered our growth forecast to 1.9% for 2026. This assumes a degree of stability in the second half of the year; if that does not materialize, we may make further adjustments.
The wind is blowing right in our faces, and there’s not much we can do to change that. Now is the time to put our skills to the test and try to minimize the impact on our performance.
