In our baseline scenario, we continue to forecast that GDP will gradually regain higher expansion rates, backed by favorable external conditions, the end of the mining investment adjustment, no big macroeconomic mismatches and a clearly expansionary monetary policy stance. This scenario also assumes that fiscal policy will remain on its consolidation path, expressed in the immediate future in the upcoming budget aligned with the Administration’s commitments. All this in a context in which potential growth steadily approaches trend-consistent levels. Accordingly, our projections show no major changes compared to our June estimates. For this year, we foresee that the economy will grow between 1.25% and 1.75% (1% to 1.75% in June). For 2018, we continue to expect growth to pick up, to a range between 2.5% and 3.5%, identical to our June forecast. On the expenditure side, our growth forecast for private consumption is slightly adjusted upward in 2017, considering the rebound of the real wage bill observed so far, the recovery of confidence indicators, the necessary replenishment of durable goods inventories and an appreciation of the real exchange rate. In investment, the downward adjustment of projections for 2017 stems primarily from construction, including the mining, infrastructure and housing components. This latter one because of the high stock of new homes for sale that still persists.
Traveling this road has not been easy. At the outset, the mere idea of granting autonomy to the Bank cast a heavy blanket of doubt, not only because of the novelty of the scheme, but because it was difficult to dissociate its potential benefits in the fight against inflation from the political circumstances of its origin. However, the Bank's actions and its first monetary policy decisions made it possible to enhance the legitimacy of the Bank. This behavior has been extended and deepened over time, largely on the initiative of successive Central Bank boards. The adjustments to the monetary policy framework, increased attention to issues of financial stability, efforts to improve the market 7  orientation of its policy decisions and the adoption, by its own initiative, of higher standards of transparency and accountability are expressions of this. Thus, the capital invested by the Bank in seriousness and commitment to the inflation target and financial stability has contributed enormously to provide spaces of independence to its monetary policy making. At the same time, the institutional autonomy of the Bank has not hindered dialogue and coordination with the Executive, through the Minister of Finance. Nor has this autonomy been translated into greater rigidity, but has provided an institutional arena within which it has been able to adapt, in a timely and flexible way, to new challenges, safeguarding the necessary independence to carry out its work.