Trade And Invest In Central America

The main message of the study is that Central America's ability to exploit the opportunities created by ongoing trade liberalization will depend on the ability of the region to implement a complementary policy agenda that creates an enabling policy and institutional environment.

Promotion of foreign direct investment (FDI) has been a priority policy goal in Central America, Panama and Dominican Republic for the past twenty years. Fiscal benefits are among the policies that have been used to attract it. At first sight the model followed has been fruitful. In 2013 the eight countries of the region succeeded in attracting US$ 12.7 billion, the highest level of FDI in their history. But there are question marks about how FDI will perform in future and what the incentives to promote it should be now that World Trade Organization rules on the instruments used to promote FDI in the region have changed. The present book analyzes this situation in depth. Firstly, it reviews the importance of FDI in the region as a source of financing for the external deficit. Then it reviews the findings of international economic research on the impact of FDI on growth and the factors that attract it. It highlights that far from being assured, the benefits of FDI depend on complementary factors which are often not present in the region. Subsequently the book analyzes the international evolution of FDI and the growing importance of multinationals of Latin origin. It then tackles the controversial question of the efficacy of fiscal incentives as a means to attract investment, following an innovative technical approach based on firm level data which questions whether the free zones have had a net positive impact on development. This analysis is complemented by a study of investment promotion policies, which focuses particularly on the Investment Promotion Agencies. Finally, the book outlines the prospects for FDI attraction now the sun has set on strategies based on providing fiscal incentives. It argues that a new strategy should be based on the creation of new skills and capacities through instruments designed to complement productive development policies and thereby generate positive spillovers in the economy.

There are no miracles in Latin America, says international consultant Louis Nevaer—only opportunities—and with economic integration well underway, these opportunities are more promising than ever for U.S. businesses. Trade barriers fell at the Summit of the Americas, and even the Mexican meltdown failed to dim the Latin American promise. How U.S. businesses can participate in these processes of democratization and liberalization in Latin America is the subject of Dr. Nevaer's wide-ranging discussion. With attention not only to economic and trade considerations, but also to social, political, and cultural events and characteristics of the Latin American business scene, Dr. Nevaer provides readers with unusually rich up-to-date insights into how business is done there and how U.S. businesspeople can do it. This is important reading for corporate management at all levels, economists, international bankers and investors, and for their colleagues in the academic community who share their interests. Dr. Nevaer starts with a general discussion of American business and business people in Latin America, and then puts the Latin American business scene in historical perspective. He looks the same way at the Mexican meltdown, focusing not only on Mexico's recovery, but on the residual social and economic problems as well. He then discusses strategies for turbulent markets throughout Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean Basin Nations, with fascinating insights into the things that U.S. businesspeople can—and cannot—expect in their day-to-day interactions with their Latin American counterparts. Of special interest are the fourteen appendices. Together they provide a detailed list of sources for business information—an easily accessed guide that executives with special needs and concerns will find essential, and which will also be of help to scholars and academic researchers.

Outlines over 75 specific financing mechanisms and institutions designed to support domestic and foreign investment and trade in Central America and the Caribbean. Provides business people in all parts of the world with access to the critical information on these financing sources, including basic background, eligibility requirements, application procedures, and key contacts.

This timely book examines the quiet revolution that is currently unfolding in Latin America and its likely consequences for U.S. trade and investment with and within that region. Receiving meager coverage by America's media, a virtual sea of change has taken place in Latin America during the past few years. Democratically elected leaders have labored to extricate their economies from the debt-laden stagnation of the lost decade by pursuing far-reaching stabilization and liberalization reform programs. Under President George Bush's proposed Enterprise Initiative for the Americas (EAI) and negotiations toward the formation of a North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) with Mexico, U.S. economic policy toward Latin America is now in the midst of a dramatic revision that seeks to rectify the neglect of the past and replace it with active encouragement of economic and political change. The authors investigate the forces behind the lost decade in Latin America, the adjustment efforts that have emerged in its wake, and the enhanced potential of Latin economies as trade partners and investment outlets under the EAI and NAFTA. They look at these developments in the light of regionalizing trends afoot in the global economy at large and argue that stronger ties with Latin America are essential to the future well-being of the United States. After outlining the emergence of global economic regionalism and its likely impact upon the United States and Latin America, the authors trace the origins of the latter's lost decade to the debt crisis of the early 1980s, the inadequacy of past international strategies to manage it, and the adoption of strenuous adjustment programs by Latin nations to deal with both debt repayment and the legacy of misguided development approaches. They show how the EAI is meant to accelerate the movement toward reliance upon free-market forces in Latin America and how the United States is likely to benefit from closer economic ties with the countries of that region. A full account of NAFTA's proposed liberalization of trade between the United States and Mexico follows, as the authors investigate its origins, examine Mexico's adjustment record, and list the gains that both nations are likely to realize under a free-trade accord. They then look at two sets of Latin economies, the first of which is formed by Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Colombia and the second comprised of Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. While the former are prepared for economic integration with the United States, major problems impair the ability of the latter to become full-fledged participants in an economic pact with the United States. The analysis presented in the book should be of substantial value to businessmen, students of world affairs, as well as those with a specific interest in U.S.-Latin relations.