Latin American economies ill-prepared for post-COVID recovery
The large Latin American economies, such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, are not among the best positioned globally to recover from the crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report presented on Wednesday by the World Economic Forum.
The study, which measures factors such as economic digitization, the strength of public health and social networks and the opening up of markets to investment and the arrival of new sectors in the 37 largest world economies, places the four countries at the bottom of the list in terms of preparedness and adaptability.
The best of the four is Chile, in 24th position, while Brazil is 26th, Argentina 30th, and Mexico the penultimate, just ahead of Turkey.
Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and China are, in that order, the five countries best placed to recover, while Germany is in ninth place, France tenth, the United States twelfth, Japan fourteenth and Spain twentieth.
The report measures eleven variables, and among them it is worth noting that Argentina, Brazil and Mexico rank last in terms of citizens' confidence in their respective governments, just ahead of Russia. The Argentine economy is also the last in terms of incentives for long-term investment.
These Latin American economies are also poorly positioned to prepare for the so-called "markets of tomorrow", such as artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, pharmaceutical production, space travel and digital financial services.
Brazil is second to last in terms of educational infrastructure for these sectors, the same position as Argentina in terms of the ease of setting up companies in them and Mexico in terms of investment for these activities.
