While having the temptation and the perfect excuse for a default right at hand, Brazil proved its seriousness back then by taking the hard, but certain road to progress, keeping its international commitments and gradually affecting strong structural reforms.  Since then, it has become a net creditor to the world; it controlled inflation, and avoided an overheating of its economy with tight fiscal and monetary policies during the recent run-up in commodity prices.

This is paying off strongly today.  The policies, run day to day by a sophisticated technocracy led by top economists and international bankers, many of which held top positions in leading international banks, has allowed Brazil to move forward and to anticipate GDP growth of 4% to 5% for the New Year.
Hence, Brazil is by far my favorite Latin American play for 2009.

Checking Out Chile

Following closely behind, and hindered only by its small size, is the poster child of fiscal and monetary prudence: Chile.

Chile, which came out of its 1970s default by eliminating its foreign debt and successfully restructuring its banking system, has made every effort to maintain very prudent fiscal and monetary policies and to diversify its exports away from copper, which, being the largest exporter of the metal in the world, still accounted for 38% of its GDP. 

Today, Chile exports many diversified products, including agricultural products, wine, fertilizers and industrial wares.  And because it’s situated on the Pacific Coast, it is geographically well positioned to trade with the fastest-growing markets in the world – China and the other emerging Asian tigers.

But Chile, in order to minimize the cyclical nature of its economy due to the wide fluctuation in the price of copper, decided years ago to start a “rainy-day” fund, which would accumulate wealth in the good years and be used to soften the blow in the bad ones.  Now, Chile boasts a $28 billion sovereign wealth fund, accumulated almost completely from its copper profits.  That’s almost equal to a staggering 14% of the country’s GDP in cash savings!  This will enable Chile to implement counter-cyclical policies to keep growing at 3.5% to 4% next year – or about the current rate of growth, even with the worldwide meltdown.

Chile already has started to deploy this capital, having passed a $1.15 billion government plan on top of last month’s $850 million to stimulate housing and small-business lending, injecting that capital into a government bank that will make available loans for small businesses.

Avoid Argentina

Chile’s fiscal prudence is in direct contrast to Argentina’s lack of discipline.  Argentina’s Peronist government, which squandered the agricultural commodities bonanza in fiscal spending, is now is trying to use its majority in both houses in Congress to pass the nationalization of the privatized pension funds under the excuse of “protecting them from market volatility.” 

These funds, which now have successfully grown to more than $30 billion in size, or 73% of the government’s budget and have returned an average of more than 13% a year since inception will allow the government to cover its fiscal gap and debt maturities next year and to financed public works and consumption projects.  The government, at the same time, is suffering from an important loss of confidence, as evidenced by its need to resort to police controls in order to prevent the illegal purchase of U.S. Dollars.  Argentina might end 2009 with growth of negative 2% and unemployment of 10%.  Stay away.

A “Maybe” for Mexico

Mexico, given its strong links to the United States, is receiving a heavy dose of external shocks on many economic and financial fronts – especially where the United States is concerned: It’s being hit by a drop in exports (the United States is the main component), the drop in oil prices, lower tourism (its largest proportion of travelers is from the United States), falling U.S. investments in Mexico, and reduced remittances from Mexicans working in the United States back to their Mexican relatives.

In addition, many companies suffered strong losses in their derivatives hedges, banks have had to reduce lending due to reduced liquidity and the Mexican peso has lost some 22% of its value against the U.S. dollar.  Mexico’s growth in the New Year may fall to about 1% from 2008’s 2.4% pace, and the country is on its way to approving the first budget with a fiscal deficit in four years.  The government’s target will be negative 1.8% of GDP, in order to stimulate the economy.  Mexico, seeing its oil production declining, is seen moving soon towards opening some oil areas for exploration and development, which some estimate could add another 1% to GDP.

Once the U.S. markets have stabilized, Mexico’s stocks will be an incredible buy once more, since they discount a very bad scenario at these prices.

A Case Against Colombia

Colombia, another country that has merited a lot of attention, given its staunch support of U.S. anti-drug and anti-money-laundering efforts, has seen its free trade agreement with the United States inexplicably delayed. 

The country foresees a tightening of credit conditions, so it is moving up its peso-based borrowing to this year.  Next year it will issue only $1 billion in foreign bonds and tap $1.4 billion from multi-lateral lenders.  So the refinancing risk for Colombia is muted, given the small amounts involved, and the country’s economy should expand a minimum of 1% in the New Year, even in the worst economic scenario. However, Colombia could grow as much as 4% under a moderate scenario.

That would represent a big drop from the 8% growth recorded this year.

The story in Colombia has been the curbing of inflation, and how far behind the curve the central bank has been, at least as recently as July, when it boosted rates up to 10% and then kept them there.

These ultra-high interest rates, combined with the global slowdown, have blunted demand for consumer products in Colombia. Since the passage of the trade pact is a situation in flux, I want to wait and see right now.

I will not go into the economies of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, which, with massive intervention by their governments and advances against property rights, are experiencing severe economic and political stress, and which do not offer the guarantees needed for foreign investment.