Latin America

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Brazil & Argentina: Only One Getting Real

Brazil is just one step removed from facing its reality. With nearly all macroeconomic indicators pointing in the less desirable of directions, the country is facing a downgrade of its sovereign credit rating with S&P on July 28 changing its

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Otaviano Canuto, IMF: Trade Opening Could Be a Source of Growth for Brazil

International trade has undergone a radical transformation in the past decades as production processes have fragmented along cross-border value chains. The Brazilian economy has remained on the fringes of this production revolution, maintaining a very high density of local supply

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Energy Case Study: Peru

Peru is the third largest country in South America with a land area five times that of the UK. Peru has a long Pacific Ocean coastline buttressed by the high and rugged mountain ranges of the Andes which are flanked

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World Bank Group: Should Oil Exporters Shift Capital Stock to Renewables?

As the Financial Times pointed out recently, oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Shell would, under measures considered for the global climate pact to be sealed in Paris next year, cease to exist in their current forms in 35 years.

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Otaviano Canuto, IMF: How Commodity-Dependent Are Latin American Economies?

The end of the upswing phase of the commodity price super-cycle, after its peak in 2011, has lowered economic growth prospects in most of Latin America. While that broad statement can hardly be disputed, Chapter 3 of the latest IMF

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The Time Is Now: Paradigm Shift Signals Opportunity

Few people realise that in 2013 a turning point was reached. In that year, emerging economies displaced developed markets as the main engines of global economic growth. This was not a one-off event or an oddity: it signalled no less

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Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Group: BRICS Apart as Oil Prices Plunge

The oil price plunge since last June has been deemed, overall, as a boon for the global economy. However, that depends on where one stands as a producer or user, as illustrated here with the divergence of impacts on BRICS

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Countries and Oil Companies Agree to End Routine Gas Flaring

Endorsements of initiative so far represent more than 40% of global gas flaring. Chief executives from major oil companies joined together today with senior government officials from several oil-producing countries to commit, for the first time, to ending the practice

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Marina Silva: Insistence That May Yet Pay Off

Brazil may not yet be ready for her, but Marina Silva is the name to watch. The former senator for Acre, a small state in the western part of the Amazonian rainforest, and presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, Marina

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Brazil: Arrest of Fraudsters Decreases Deforestation Rate

One man can make a difference. Since Brazilian authorities in August 2014 issued an arrest warrant and forced Ezequiel Antônio Castanha into hiding, deforestation rates along the northern stretch of the BR-163 highway have decreased by as much as 65%.

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