RT Book, Section
A1 OECD
T1 Executive Summary
JF Latin American Economic Outlook
YR 2012
FD Jan 13
SP 13
OP 26
AB Latin America’s solid economic performance since 2003 has created the opportunity for transforming the state, enabling the adoption of ambitious public policies that lock in the prospect of long-term development and mitigate short-term risks. Despite important differences in current economic conditions within the region —with South America outperforming Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean— strong external demand (especially from emerging economies like China), in combination with vigorous internal demand, resulted in an average annual GDP growth rate of almost 5% during 2003-08.1 Part of this performance was also due to good macroeconomic management that created sufficient fiscal space to manage the effects of the global financial crisis without jeopardising fiscal sustainability (Figure 0.1). Between 2000 and 2007, public debt in the region shrank on average by 15 percentage points of GDP, while fiscal balances moved from an overall deficit of 2.4% of GDP to a surplus of 0.4% of GDP. Macroeconomic policies and higher primary export prices strengthened macroeconomic stability and provided resources for implementing anti-poverty programmes and increasing access to basic public services. This led to less pronounced recessions and swift recoveries compared to OECD economies. While real GDP growth in the advanced economies is expected to remain sluggish, Latin America is expected to grow 4.4% in 2011 and 4% in 2012.2 In this context, Latin American countries have the opportunity to design and implement public policies with long-term development goals and also reduce some medium and short-term risks.
PB Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
DO 10.1787/leo-2012-4-en
UL http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/;jsessionid=h1r3tpqojn4t7.x-oecd-live-01content/chapter/leo-2012-4-en