“Will 2011 be the dawn of the Latin American decade?” asked the headline of a Standard & Poor’s webcast that piqued my curiosity last week. When I saw it, I wondered whether the Wall Street ratings firm was making a big blunder, or I was missing the biggest economic story in the region.
The Standard & Poor’s headline was only the latest of several optimistic reports about Latin America’s economies. All of a sudden, Latin America is becoming — after China and India — an emerging economic star.
A recent World Bank report, “Latin America: Beyond boom and busts?,” suggested we may see a new era of economic stability and growth. A U.N. agency projects that the region will grow by at least 4.2 percent this year, following 6 percent growth last year.
I hope I’m wrong about this, but barring a major move to improve its education standards and diversify its exports, this will not be the “dawn of Latin America’s decade.” With luck, it will be the start of an era of prosperity for a few countries, and the last two or three years of a cycle of externally driven growth for most others.
Source: http://www.kansascity.com
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