Venezuela's economy has become a lasting casualty of the recession

The Economist: At dawn on September 16, 1810 Miguel Hidalgo, the parish priest of Dolores, a small town in central Mexico, rang the bells of his church to raise the cry of rebellion against the Spanish crown. Mexico, Spain's richest American colony, thus joined a struggle for independence which had already seen the colonial authorities ousted and rebel juntas installed in Caracas, Buenos Aires and other South American cities. Two years earlier, following Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of the Iberian peninsula, King Joao VI of Portugal and his court had been installed in Rio de Janeiro by a British fleet. Brazil would never again be governed from Lisbon.

As Latin America marks the bicentenary of the start of its struggle for political independence, many of its constituent countries have more recent cause for celebration too. The five years to 2008 were Latin America's best since the 1960s, with economic growth averaging 5.5% a year and inflation generally in single digits. Even more impressively, a region which had become a byword for financial instability mostly sailed through the recent recession. After a brief downturn in late 2008 and early 2009, a strong recovery is now under way, with most forecasts suggesting economic growth of over 5% this year for the region as a whole.

Along with growth came a better life. Between 2002 and 2008 some 40 million Latin Americans, out of a total population of 580 million, were lifted out of poverty, and income distribution became a bit less unequal almost everywhere. Poverty increased in 2009 because of the recession, but will start declining again this year. Average unemployment went up slightly to 8.2%, but should come down again this year to 7.8%, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Latin America weathered the recession partly thanks to good fortune but also to sound policies. After the cataclysmic debt crisis of 1982 the region's policymakers abandoned the protectionism and fiscal profligacy that had brought hyperinflation and bankruptcy. In their place they adopted the market reforms of the Washington Consensus (opening up their economies to trade and foreign investment, privatization and deregulation).

But they found the road to stability and faster growth a long and bumpy one. During a second bout of instability, from 1998 to 2002, the region introduced more pragmatic policies. The formula has generally included flexible exchange rates, inflation-targeting by more or less independent central banks, more responsible fiscal policies and tighter regulation of banks, as well as social policies aimed at the poor. The recession was an important test. Last year "may have been the final exam and the graduation party" after Latin America's lengthy education in getting macroeconomic policy right, says Santiago Levy, the chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The region's newfound economic stability and social progress also owes much to the fact that over the past 30 years democracy has become established almost everywhere. Nearly all elections are now free and fair. The big exception remains the gerontocratic dictatorship of the Castro brothers in Cuba.

There are threats to democracy in some other places: last year a coup toppled an elected government in Honduras, and opponents of the governments in Venezuela and Nicaragua face growing harassment and intimidation. But broadly speaking Latin America today is more democratic than ever before.

Latin America's new resilience and faster growth is starting to attract increased interest from outsiders. That is especially true of Brazil, now often perceived to be in a league of its own. That is only partly because Jim O'Neill, an economist at Goldman Sachs, did it a huge favor when in 2001 he bracketed it together with Russia, India and China as one of the BRICs which would dominate world economic growth over the coming decades. Another reason is Brazil's sheer size: with a population of 191 million it accounts for a third of Latin America's total and 40% of the region's GDP. Since 2007 Brazil has begun to grow faster than the regional average -- although by common consent its red-hot pace of 11% in the year to March 2010 will subside to less than half that rate next year.

As multinationals face mounting difficulties in China, some bankers and businessmen are looking at Latin America -- and not just Brazil -- as an alternative. The region has 15% of the world's oil reserves, a large stock of its minerals, a quarter of its arable land (much of it unused) and 30% of its fresh water. Mexico, its other giant, with almost 25% of its GDP, suffered a deeper recession in 2009 and is struggling to deal with violent drug gangs, but it has maintained economic and political stability. Like the big two, Chile, Colombia, Panama and Peru have investment-grade credit ratings, and all four are growing fast. Governments, households and companies in all these countries are less indebted than those in many developed countries.

Already, Latin America takes a quarter of the total exports of the United States and around a fifth of its outward flow of portfolio investment. Total bank credit in the region will grow by about 12% a year over the next few years, faster than anywhere except China and India, reckons Manuel Medina Mora, who heads Citibank's Latin American operations and its global consumer-banking business. Its share of the market capitalisation of publicly quoted companies and assets under management is only 3-5% of the world total but growing at 25% a year, faster than anywhere else, according to Paulo Oliveira of Brain Brasil, a body set up to promote the country as a business hub.

Marketing people are beginning to talk about a "Latin American decade." If the region can keep up the growth of the past few years, it will double its income per person by 2025, to an average of $22,000 a year at purchasing-power parity. By then Brazil may be the world's fifth-biggest economy, behind only China, the United States, India and Japan. Half a dozen countries may have achieved developed-country status, with an income equivalent to Spain's today.

Causes for caution

Some Latin American countries may at last have found a path towards economic development. But getting there may be no quicker or easier than achieving independence. Latin America has often flattered to deceive. Today there are at least three big worries. First, since 1960 it has seen the lowest growth in productivity of any region in the world, not least because around half of all economic activity takes place in the informal sector. Second, despite some recent improvement, its income distribution is still the most unequal anywhere. This has acted as a drag on growth and caused political conflict. Third, it suffers from widespread crime and violence, much of it perpetrated by organised drug gangs. The murder rate is hideously high in some countries.

A problem for any report such as this one is that Latin America is so diverse as to defy most generalizations. For some purposes it includes the small English-speaking island-states of the Caribbean. Haiti's problems were more akin to Africa's even before its devastating earthquake. On the other hand, some Brazilians argue that their country -- differentiated by speaking Portuguese and, until recently, geographically isolated from its neighbors -- is not really part of Latin America.

Income per person also varies widely, from $15,300 in Panama to $2,900 in Nicaragua. And there is an ideological divide too. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers in Cuba reject integration with the world economy in favor of state socialism and managed trade. Their economies have suffered for it: Venezuela's economy has become a lasting casualty of the recession, despite the swift recovery in the oil price.

So there are differences. But there are clear trends, and an identifiable majority. Mr Chavez, for instance, has his allies but very few want to embrace fully his brand of economic mayhem. Rafael Correa in Ecuador is discreetly distancing himself. Evo Morales in Bolivia has pursued a prudent macroeconomic policy at the same time as launching a collectivist experiment under which people of indigenous descent are being granted special rights. Despite the efforts of its first family, the Kirchners, Argentina retains a vigorous private sector.

This report will concentrate mainly on the region's larger countries that have embraced globalization: Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru, which between them represent three-quarters of Latin America's GDP and more than 70% of its people.

They have all recently enjoyed a huge bonus: the world commodity boom that began earlier this decade as China and India sucked up foodstuffs and raw materials.