| After the commodity boom, the region needs a new formula for growth. It was wonderful while it lasted. For much of this century Latin America saw robust economic growth, a big fall in poverty and a swelling of the middle classes. Now the good times are over. Emerging markets everywhere are subsiding like a cooling soufflé. But Latin America has gone stone cold. The IMF expects growth of just 0.9% in 2015, which would be the fifth successive year of deceleration.
Many economists are talking of a new normal of growth of only 2% or so a year—less than half the region’s pace during the boom. What has gone wrong? The short answer is that the great commodity supercycle triggered by the industrialisation of China is over. Rising exports of minerals, soya beans and fuels lifted many South American economies. Without that fillip the region has converged downwards to the 2.4% long-term growth rate of Mexico, which is not a big commodity exporter...............................................Full Article: Source
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