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INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

The business news headlines across Latin America tend to focus on industries like telecom, energy, banking and the automotive sector. Often ignored by the media, the food industry continues to quietly grow and prosper, year after year. The snack food segment, in particular, has enjoyed spectacular growth over the past five years. Global players like Nabisco, Frito-lay, and PepsiCo all report that Latin America is the fastest growing region in their global empires. 

Growth is driven by partly societal changes such as shorter mid-day meal breaks, an increase in the proportion of families where both parents work, longer working hours and a trend towards diet foods. The introduction of new flavors has had unexpected effects. Latin Americans will try experimenting with new tastes and imaginative packaging, but they inevitably return to traditional flavors.

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REGIONAL TRENDS
Go Global or Stay Home? 
The Great Debate in Latin American Board Rooms

The jury is still out on the ongoing debate in the Latin American boardrooms: diversify and stay local or specialize and go global? In principle, specialization provides scales of economy in production, marketing, administration and knowledge development. But that theory can break down when crossing borders. In smaller markets characterized by flexible regulations and wealthy elites, high level political and corporate connections may be more important to the bottom line than economy of scale or industry knowledge. This situation may change as entrenched family groups are exposed to greater international competition and more rigorous enforcement of regulations at home. As this article illustrates, domestic market characteristics drive this choice: the larger and more open an economy, the more likely that a Latin corporation will specialize. 

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ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

Multinationals looking for growth in 2001 will find some encouraging prospects in Latin America. Signs of diminishing consumer confidence and spending are setting off alarm bells throughout the US economy. In response, corporate offices are scrambling to find markets to pick up the slack left by flat growth north of the Rio Grande. For the first time since 1997, Latin America will outgrow the United States. 

Lower US interest rates are a blessing in Latin America, with its heavily dollarized external debt. Higher oil prices will also benefit most of the region, with the exception of  Brazil and Chile, which are both net importers. Currency appreciations, most notably the Mexican Peso and Venezuela's Bolivar, will also drive continuing demand growth. The main negative development in 2001 will be falling FDI levels. But even then, some stability will be maintained by the continuation of expansion plans spawned by huge infrastructure privatizations over the last four years. So its not surprising that so many multinationals are looking southward for markets to offset slowing sales in the United States.

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AMEX
Avery Dennison
BBDO 
Booz, Allen & Hamilton 
Citicorp International 
Computer Sciences Corp.
Conagra

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