At 5.5%, Latin America’s GDP expansion in 2004 was the best recorded in 25 years, raising the profile of a region all but forgotten since it started falling apart in 2001. Renewed growth has been fuelled by a massive injection of foreign currency resulting from skyrocketing prices for commodities that Latin America supplies competitively. This performance demonstrates that the globally-exposed region can do well when the world economy is a benevolent one. Record commodity demand and low interest rates contributed to the startling turn-around.

 During the 1990’s, escalating violence and kidnappings chased Colombian professionals, their families and their savings out of the country. The election of Alvaro Uribe in 2002 brought a promise of change from a President known above all for his discipline, be it fighting guerillas, corruption or wasteful spending. Two years into his first term, Colombia is a transformed nation. Violent crime is down dramatically and Colombians are coming home with a new sense of optimism.

Mexico under Fox is embroiled in a political fiasco with almost no legislative progress, constant in-fighting within the party, and petty squabbles with the opposition, creating a veritable Yellow Press heaven. Yet the economy has been surprisingly stable since Mexico’s recovery from the peso crisis really took hold in 1998. Over the last six years, the peso has slipped by an average of only 3.4% per year relative to the dollar, in spite of the 10.5% drop in 2003. This makes it relatively stable in comparison with the currencies of other developing countries.

It is all too common for Latin American politicians to live in rosy denial of their nation’s economic plight. Latin voters, long accustomed to incompetent or unscrupulous government, can be surprisingly optimistic, even when facing dire circumstances. Perhaps it is a sign of political maturity that today, Mexicans –politicians and voters alike – are decidedly gloomy in the midst of a period of economic stability unknown to the country since the 1960s.