Sunday, September 05, 2010

Latin American economies

We hear a lot about economic recovery in Latin America, but the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean has a noteworthy buzzkill:


Exports that most increased were natural resources from South America at the expense of manufactured products and services with varying degrees of technological content, ECLAC said.
Statistics for the period show the region has reverted to an export structure based on prime materials similar to that of 20 years ago.


Ah, good old dependency theory.  Like the undead, it just doesn't quite ever go away.  You export primary products and import finished goods.  In Central America and the Caribbean, dependency is even more pronounced because remittances are becoming more and more central, and of course their flow relies not only on the U.S. economy but also U.S. immigration policy.

It is also noteworthy that this transcends ideology.  Governments may disagree on exactly who makes the profits, and how the proceeds get distributed, but they agree on where they should come from.

1 comments:

leftside 1:43 PM  

Governments may disagree on exactly who makes the profits, and how the proceeds get distributed, but they agree on where they should come from.

Who makes the profits and how the proceeds get distributed is far more important than what is being sold. It would be absurd to suggest that Venezuela try to reduce their hydrocarbon revenue in the efforts to reduce their "dependency" on world markets. But it does make sense to reduce one's dependency on only one market - the US for example. Of course, it also makes sense to use oil revenue to develop a more export orientated economy - and that is exactly what Chavez has been attempting (with mostly good results).

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