METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING DIFLUORO LACTONE COMPOUND

To provide a method for producing a difluoro compound highly selectively in good yield without forming a hardly soluble by-product. An ester compound represented by the formula (1) is reacted and fluorinated with an electrophilic fluorinating agent in the presence of a basic compound and in the absence of a metal compound reactant to produce a difluoro ester compound represented by the formula (2). (R 1 is a group selected from the group consisting of a C 1-30 alkyl group which may have a substituent, a C 3-30 cycloalkyl group which may have a substituent, a C 4-30 cycloalkenyl group which may have a substituent (provided that the carbon atom adjacent to the carbon atom at the ±-position of the carbonyl group forms no double bond), a C 2-30 alkynyl group which may have a substituent, and a C 8-30 cycloalkynyl group which may have a substituent, and R 2 is a C 1-30 hydrocarbon group which may have a substituent, or R 1 and R 2 are bonded to form an alkylene group which forms, together with -C-C(O)-O-, a lactone ring which has from 3 to 8 carbon atoms in the ring and which may have a substituent.).