MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
For second time in a decade India/Latam trade in 2012 was down
India's trade with Latin America has gone down in 2012 in comparison to 2011. This is the second time the trade went down in the last decade when it was steadily growing. The earlier decline was in 2009 at the height of global crisis. Trade with the top seven countries of the region declined 15% from 25.274bn dollars in 2011 to 21.302bn in 2012. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rules“Chile has, of course, remained as the most stable and best managed economy of the region.”
Feb 25th, 2013 - 03:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Thank you for the Indian perspective Mr Viswanathan.
“Exports to Argentina and Venezuela suffered from local restrictions, controls and policy uncertainties. These are the only two countries which have gone back to the bad old system of foreign exchange controls.”
Feb 25th, 2013 - 06:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Ain't that the truth!
Why always amazes me about the trolls on this site is that they hone in on certain articles and forget others. Amazingly they have missed an absolutely scathing article on Argentina's economic policies and proof that Argentina is slowly sliding down the scale and falling behind.
Feb 26th, 2013 - 11:51 am - Link - Report abuse 0I've been predicting Colombia will eventually displace Argentina as the regions's second largest and most influential country after Brazil. It is South America's sleeping giant.
Anglotino
Feb 26th, 2013 - 02:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yes that is true. The trolls don't like this. It is the analysis of an Indian so they can rant about the CIA or anglos or pirates. It is just a frank assessment by someone who actually wants to increase trade with the region.
Re. Colombia: it will be a close call if it is to be Colombia or Peru. They both have similar gdp/head but Peru is growing much faster.
Condorito
Feb 26th, 2013 - 10:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Peru is indeed doing very well but it suffers from the same unfortunate limitations as Chile; economic, demographic and geopolitical weighting.
Don't get me wrong, Chile is the stand out performer and the yardstick that all Latin American countries should measure themselves against.
Colombia is both a Pacific and Caribbean country. It is the connection between South America and Central America. It has a foot in all three major Latin American regions.
It also has a larger population than Argentina. 50% more than Peru's. For all its problems it is the oldest continuing democracy in South America.
Its civil war/insurgency has hobbled it for decades and limited its ability. With this winding down it will accelerate even more - indeed just like Peru.
Historically Argentina was the regional heavyweight after Brazil. However the heavy streak of populism that runs through it will relegate it further and further behind Colombia and potentially even behind Peru.
The Pacific Alliance is showing the world what South America is capable of when embracing the markets and world trade. Mercosur is the opposite. It is also interesting to see the differences in growth, wealth creation, trade and inflation between these two groups.
If there's one thing for sure, you won't see the Pacific Alliance members turning on each other and backstabbing each other in trade like you do in Mercosur.
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