Latin America and the Caribbean's Economies Turn in Stronger Performance This Year.

This article discusses the current turn-around in the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean. The growth rate of the countries in this region will grow 4.5% in 2004. This will benefit just about every country in the region. The leading country will be Venezuela. Growth has been driven by exports to such countries as the U.S., Japan, and China. The bulk of the gains were from a tourism turnaround, rising commodity prices, a decline in sovereign risk premiums, and growth in non-oil exports to the U.S.. The regional governments have also adopted better monetary and fiscal policies. But the underlying factor that applies this article to our discussions is the reliance of these countries to foreign finance or trade. Foreign investment has fallen for the past four years in this region and they are now beginning to show signs of a turn around. This along with the other factors mentioned have allowed these countries to see light at the end of the tunnel, even though they are currently seeing both high inflation and high unemployment rates.
http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=/prensa/noticias/comunicados/3/15463/P15463.xml&xsl=/prensa/tpl-i/p6f.xsl&base=\tpl-i\top-bottom.xsl