There seems to be a pattern here. For three of the last four clients (all from the UK) I have been working with, I have focused on some combination of three Latin American countries: Chile, Colombia and Peru. And this is no coincidence. Despite the allure of Mexico and Brazil, these three countries are on my radar now more than ever.
Today, let me tell you a bit more about why you should be looking at Chile, but let me do it with a twist. I flew earlier today
Santiago de Chile (copyright: Sunny Sky Solutions)
between Montevideo (Uruguay) and Santiago de Chile and grabbed, as usual, a copy of a Chilean newspaper, El Mercurio.
Big headline: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that in 2013, Chile will be amongst the top 6 most dynamic economies in the world (yes, world, not just Latin America). Who are the top five? Well, certainly not Brazil or Mexico…
The five economies forecast to grow the most this year according to the IMF are China and India – and Peru, Paraguay and Bolivia. Peru again, you see. Paraguay and Bolivia? We’ll come back to that in a later post…
The growth forecast for Chile for 2013 is 4.6%. Yes, lower than the 5.6% of 2012 but still impressive compared to the 0.9% for the UK. But looking at the graph on the Mercurio I couldn’t help but look a little bit down the line and see that actually other Latin American countries are not that far behind Chile…
Ecuador (4.4%), Colombia (4.1%) and Uruguay (4%) all have very commendable forecast growth rates for this year. On the other hand, Mexico is forecast a 2.9% growth, Argentina 2.8% and Brazil 2.5%. So your strategic move into Chile has some solid macroeconomic justification… And I’ve probably now got you thinking about Uruguay and Ecuador, too, right?
The story doesn’t end there. On the same newspaper I had in my hands, I read that Paco Rabanne is opening new stores in South America. Guess where? In Chile, Peru and Colombia. Adidas is opening specialist outdoor stores in Chile, too, says El Mercurio. Interesting.
Latin America is definitely not just about Brazil and Mexico, although these are indeed the largest economies. There are opportunities for your business elsewhere, too. And growing ones.
The full Mercurio article can be found HERE.
