A temporary rebound in growth

The latest activity figures suggest that most Latin American economies held up better than we’d thought in the first few months of 2023. Mexico and Colombia made surprisingly strong starts to the year while Chile’s economy appeared to be gathering some momentum in Q1. Overall, our measure of regional GDP points to a pick-up in growth, to 0.5% q/q, last quarter. But we think this rebound will prove temporary and expect elevated interest rates, relatively tight fiscal policy and weakness in the US economy to cause regional growth to slow to just 1% over 2023 as a whole, which would be slower than in most other EM regions.