Efter at have klaret sig godt gennem finanskrisen, rammes Latinamerika og Caribien nu. I 2012 ventes væksten således at falde fra 4,3 til 3,7 procent, fremgår det af en rapport som FNs kommission for Latinamerika og Caribien offentliggjorde onsdag.
SANTIAGO de CHILE, 21 December 2011: In the Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2011, the regional organization of the United Nations states that although growth was already slower by the first half of 2011 when compared to 2010, most of the region showed a positive performance thanks to a favorable external situation.
However, volatility and uncertainty complicated the global environment during the second half of the year, which caused a greater slowdown of economies compared to 2010, when the region grew by 5.9 per cent.
According to the publication, the projected growth for 2011 means a rise in per capita output by 3.2 per cent, and like in previous years, the results are uneven among the subregions, given that the South American countries grew by 4.6 per cent, the economies of Central America by 4.1 per cent and the Caribbean nations by only 0.7 per cent.
The countries with the greatest growth this year will be Panama (10.5 per cent), Argentina (9.0 per cent), Ecuador (8.0 per cent), Peru (7.0 per cent) and Chile (6.3 per cent), while El Salvador will only grow by 1.4 per cent, Cuba by 2.5 per cent and Brazil by 2.9 per cent.
In this context, rapid job creation was observed and the regional open unemployment rate dropped from 7.3 per cent to 6.8 per cent.
In addition to the effect of an increasingly complex external situation, the lower economic growth in 2011 is due to measures applied particularly in Brazil to reduce domestic demand and prevent overheating as a result of its substantial growth in 2010.
However, many countries grew more in 2011 than in 2010, as a result of a number of factors such as the recovery from natural disasters in the case of Chile and Haiti, the high prices of hydrocarbons, which favored countries such as Venezuela and Ecuador, and the effect of the recovery of the United States of America on exports and remittances from some countries in Central America and the Caribbean.
The macroeconomic policy challenges which the countries had to face this year included the rise in regional inflation, which rose from 6.6 per cent in 2010 to almost 7per cent in 2011, the appreciation of various currencies – in particular during the first half of the year-, the recovery of fiscal space, maintaining growth and particularly, starting from the second half of the year, the threat of a slowdown due to the external context.
ECLAC projects that growth over the next year in Latin America and the Caribbean will be led by Haiti (8.0 per cent, followed by Panama (6.5 procent), Peru (5.0 procent), Ecuador (5.0 procent) and Argentina (4.8 per cent).
