During recent months, the real estate sector has slid into decline as the speculative bubble that ran wild in the past few years has punctured. Fraudulent activity in the real estate sector in recent years helped fuel the bubble, and is making adjustment all the more painful.  The result is unpaid debts that must be foreclosed by the financial and banking institutions, which have granted millions of dollars in loans to bankrupt individuals.  In some states, particularly Florida, this process was accompanied by an inflow of capital from Latin American countries with high political and economic instability in search of safe investments.

Tendencias is proud to feature the results of the 2008 Global Market Intelligence Study.  Kroll-InfoAmericas, in partnership with member companies of the Global Intelligence Alliance, presents this third edition in response to the increasing demand from clients for an annual repetition of this study.  The 2008 study is the largest conducted yet, with close to 500 participants worldwide.

In this version, Kroll-InfoAmericas has extracted the results from Latin America to compare them to those of the rest of the world. One of several remarkable highlights is the expected growth rate for market and competitive intelligence activities in Latin America, which is considerably higher than in any other region in the world.

Multinational growth strategies in Latin America have shifted recently after years of steady economic growth, a strengthening middle class, expansion of credit, and the growing strength of global players in the region.  Now facing increasing competition in first tier markets, growth strategies focus on deepening one’s presence in existing markets and expanding into second tier markets.  The following presentation explores these emerging trends in market and business intelligence for Latin America strategic planning.

Worker remittances to Mexico from the United States are down 2.9%, totaling $5.4 billion, during the first quarter of 2008 as compared to the same period in 2007.  Mexico frequently serves as a barometer for the region because it accounts for nearly half of the region’s remittances.  First quarter figures are not surprising in light of a softening of growth during 2007, but the ever increasing severity of deceleration in the US economy could actually make 2008 the first year on-record where remittances post negative growth.