HIGHLIGHTS-New Colombia Finance Minister Carrasquilla on growth, tax reform

Reuters

BOGOTA, Aug 10 (Reuters) - The following are key comments on the economy from new Colombian Finance Minister Alberto Carrasquilla's first meeting with journalists on Friday.

• "We have a series of quite complicated problems in the fiscal area, we have fiscal pressures that deserve attention. All the problems we found have a solution."

• "In Colombia we have opted to maintain a fiscal rule, which the current government respects and considers immobile. In the coming days we will present a process of adjustment to satisfy the fiscal rule."

• "We don't have the slightest doubt that total collection should be much higher."

• "Business tax is excessive - the rates that formal businesses are paying are excessive."

• "The Colombian economy is in a situation that's not satisfactory."

• "It won't be easy at all (to reach the 2019 deficit target), the budget that was presented has a sharp fall in the flow of investment, what was presented in the budget is insufficient to find a way to cover those holes and to find a way to do it all within the fiscal rule."

• "I'm doing all I can so that we can present (tax reform) shortly."

• "The poorest population should not be paying (VAT) taxes."

• "President Duque has set us a target, he has said that in the first year we should reduce (tax) evasion by 10 percent and in four years by 50 percent."

• "There are difficult moments coming and we must be creative, we must be strategic. We have to go out to the external market in a clear way."

• "I don't think we can wait, we have three special problems in pensions, the first is coverage and we will do what is necessary for it to be a reality. ... The second is regressiveness, the 25 percent who have access to the pension system aren't the poorest population. ... The third is the existence of two systems."

• "I'm convinced that the expert commission on spending is right, we are spending too much on subsidies. We don't have certainty that, for example, energy subsidies are helping those who most need it."

• "We are talking about growing 2.5 to 3 percent in 2018, we have seen signs that is a reachable goal, and starting to raise the growth rate to 3.5 percent the next year."

• "I would expect a tax reform that gives us more collection of about 0.3 (percent) of GDP, some three trillion or more per year."

(Reporting by Carlos Vargas Compiled by Julia Symmes Cobb)