Why South American economies are rebounding first

Christian Science Monitor: Why South American economies are rebounding first

Commodities-hungry China is pulling Brazil, Chile, and others out of recession. But Mexico and Central America, dependent on US sales, are lagging.

Mexico City; and SÃo Paulo, Brazil – Latin America, long tied to the economic well-being of the United States, finds itself in a rare position these days: recovering from the global financial crisis faster than most of the rest of the world.

After shrinking 2.5 percent this year, the regional GDP is expected to return to 2.9 percent growth next year, according to the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook.

But the recovery has two faces.

Brazil and other commodities-­exporting nations in South America are blazing the way forward thanks to increased trade with China, as Mexico and Central America languish from a sustained drop in demand in the US.

"Every time that the US or Europe or any other of the big world locomotives were in trouble, Latin America fell," says Alfredo Coutino, Latin America director at Moody's Economy.com. "This is the first time in many, many decades in which Latin America is better prepared, in terms of economic strengths, to deal with the external recession." …