|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Latin America Recovery expected
Fortaleza, Brazil –– Despite signs of an upturn in the United States, Latin America's economies will only start recovering in 2003, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank said Monday. Addressing the opening ceremony of the Bank's 43rd annual meeting in this coastal city in Brazil's northeast, Enrique Iglesias said a U.S. recovery would bring better commodity prices, more tourism and renewed demand for goods made in Latin America and the Caribbean. "But in the best case, it will likely be 2003 before we see any generalized improvement," he said. "Given slow-growth forecasts, this year doesn't look promising." According to the Bank's 2001 annual report, the region grew by an average of one percent last year, weighed down by the global slowdown, the aftermath of Sept. 11 and renewed vulnerability in the region's markets as Argentina collapsed late in the year. For this year, the report projects regional growth of less than 2 percent, although only Argentina is expected to continue languishing in recession. Iglesias urged the region's leaders not to abandon market-friendly policies and revert to economic populism that in earlier decades resulted in hyperinflation and stagnation. But he and other speakers warned that the failure of free-market reforms to bring prosperity and eradicate the region's shocking poverty had left many Latin Americans disillusioned. "Today these reforms are being called into question," said Iglesias. "Two out of three of our fellow citizens believe the economic situation to be bad or very bad. Only one in four believes it will improve." "Those who came out 'losers' in the reforms may have been concentrated in low-income groups, whereas the 'winners' cut across different social and economic brackets," he said. The U.S. Treasury's top international official, Undersecretary John Taylor, said the region should strive to catch up with North America, Europe and Asia by tripling its meager 0.7 percent annual productivity growth of the 1990s. "Poverty reduction and higher standards of living cannot occur without productivity growth," Taylor said, adding that IDB loans or grants should be evaluated according to their effect on productivity. Iglesias and others warned, however, that governments should be careful that in the quest for economic growth and balancing nations' accounts, social concerns are not ignored. "The path of austerity in a poor country is a very difficult path to tread," Peru's President Alejandro Toledo – who himself grew up in an impoverished family of 16 – told the meeting. FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Action on Aging distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
|
