Latin America's new dynamic

Latin America has truly emerged onto the world stage. The region grew at 3.9 per cent a year from 2002 to 2008 with a boom period of 5.1 per cent and it will grow by 4.4 per cent this year even in the midst of a crisis in Western economies. Latin America has abundant resources and is responsible for 47% of all copper exports in the world. Its economic success is feeding into positive social changes, including an 11 per cent decrease in the poverty rate in the last decade. Unemployment is low at 7.2 per cent. But there is much to be done as Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN ECLAC), pointed out: “Latin America is not the world’s poorest region, but it has the most striking inequalities.”

The relationship between Europe and Latin America is changing and must evolve further heard the participants of a one day Policy Summit on EU-Latin America relations entitled ‘Latin America’s new dynamic’, co-organised by Friends of Europe, @LIS2 – The Alliance for the Information Society Programme, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, RedCLARA, the Latin American Cooperation of Research and Education Networks and Regulatel, the Forum of Latin American Regulators.

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