Life left in the region’s recovery

While the rest of the global economy experienced a pick-up in growth towards the end of last year, our GDP Tracker suggests that regional growth in Latin America flat-lined at around 2.5% y/y in Q4 – broadly unchanged from the pace of expansion recorded in Q3. However, there are good reasons to expect the region’s recovery to regain momentum in the early part of this year. The weakness at the end of 2017 was due primarily to softer data from Colombia and Mexico but we expect activity in both countries to rebound over the coming months. Meanwhile, the recovery in the region’s largest economy, Brazil, has continued to strengthen and growth in other parts of the region (including Peru) has picked up too. Structural constraints mean that regional growth is likely to peak at a lower rate in this cycle than in past recoveries. Even so, the data from the end of 2017 don’t signal that Latin America’s recovery has stalled – we expect regional GDP growth to accelerate towards 3% y/y over the coming months.