We’ve been discussing lots of stats here. This month we covered internet speed and last month we looked at prosperity, apart from posting on LinkedIn about how to use stats when researching export markets. We rather like sharing all these stats and sources with you – it’s the curation and the interpretation that really adds value to our work as consultants.
Today, we are looking at infrastructure. From IPSOS’ Global Infrastructure Index it looks like Latin Americans are the least happy in the world with their infrastructure. Forget salsa and samba, all we want better roads, airports and WiFi:
The Inter-American Development Bank paints a similar picture: we ain’t happy at all.
Having said that, Latin Americans’ conformity with their infrastructure varies considerably by country: Chileans are rather happy, Brazilians less so.
Latin Americans aren’t at all happy with their infrastructure – so what does it all mean to you?
1- There are always opportunities for overseas companies around infrastructure development across Latin America. Always. Everywhere. It doesn’t fail.
2- If you depend heavily on infrastructure to do business here, things can be difficult.
3- Take this into account when doing business: in pricing, timing and in your contracts with distributors and/or clients.
4- Our governments hardly have the cash to narrow this gap. And yes, we have tried PPPs. To different degrees of success.
5- Don’t be fooled by grand declarations and political headlines. We all know here that the gap will be almost impossible to close and that even trying to narrow it is a mammoth task.
We are clearly not happy about infrastructure in our region. But are we right to be so dissatisfied? In our next post we will look into infrastructure gaps and see if, when and where the discontent is (not) justified. Don’t want to miss out? Subscribe to our newsletter or follow Gaby on Twitter!
