MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Latinamerica better prepared to face financial turbulences

Latinamerican economies are much better prepared than in the nineties to face financial turbulences, said on Friday Jose Luis Machinea, Executive Secretary for the United National Economic Committee for Latinamerica and the Caribbean, CEPAL.

"The region has more international reserves, less debt, longer terms, fiscal surpluses, clearly the region is far better than in the nineties", insisted Machinea during a seminar in Brasilia where he was one of the main speakers. His statement coincided with global losses of closing markets on Friday given the growing concerns about the US economy and particularly the housing industry and mortgage institutions. Former Argentine Economy minister Machinea said Chile has the most solid position in the region and Brazil, the largest Latinamerican economy, "is much better than three years ago". Regarding Argentina, the region's third largest economy Machinea mentioned as problems inflationary pressures and lack of sufficient infrastructure investments but they are "manageable" and can be overcome. As to the major risks for the region given the fact that the world's leading economy is facing serious misbalances, Machinea said "risk exists", but the forecast of Cepal is that the US economy should begin to recover and pick up at the end of 2007.