Latin America will end in 2020 its slowest growth period in forty years

Latin America fails to recover. The slowest growth period in the region will be from 2014 to 2020 and its mainly caused by the complex situation that several countries in the region are going through, as well as its strong dependence on raw materials. The momentum of raw materials was, without a doubt, a great driver of Latin America’s growth in the first years of the decade, which ended abruptly in 2014 and the consequences are still present.

Income per capita, main indicator of economic evolution accumulates a decrease of more than 4% in this period, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Celac). Most of this setback is influenced by the unstable situation that three Latin American countries are going through: Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela.

The public debt of the region has gone from 36.1% to 43.2%, since 2014

Public debt in the region has skyrocketed by more than seven percentage points, from 36.1% to 43.2%, since 2014. Chile and Brazil have the highest levels of debt compared to their GDP. Chile is, in fact, the second most indebted developing economy in the world, after China.

Although global data is mainly affected by Argentina and Venezuela, there are countries such as Colombia and Guatemala that are exceptions in the region. They are the only two countries in Latin America that did not diminish their growth.

In Venezuela, inflation has been out of statistics for a long time (39,000% in September) and Argentina will end 2019 with an increase in the CPI above 50% year-on-year despite the collapse of consumption and economic activity.