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Economy & Business - December 2011 (ISSN 1741-7430)

Set fair

This is our second effort at forecasting what may happen in 2012. We are still optimistic and although prospects for the US-centred area that covers Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean are picking up thanks to signs of improvement in the US economy, we still believe that South America, where China rather than the US is the biggest external factor, will outperform the rest of the region. As usual, we are bullish on Brazil, where we think that GDP growth will be faster in 2012 than it was in 2011. We are also turning more optimistic on Mexico. Although there are presidential elections in Mexico in 2012, the signs are that the election campaign will offer voters forthright choices. There will be a conventional (ie socialist) Left candidate in the form of Andrés Manuel López Obrador; there will be a pro-business candidate, probably Josefina Vázquez Mota from the Partido Acción Nacional and there will be a corporatist candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, from the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, who is the current shoo-in according to the opinion polls. We’re writing this just after the Peruvian cabinet reshuffle on 10 December.

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