Canning Insights

Brazilian construction company Odebrecht’s admission in 2016 that it had bribed
public officials across Latin America over a decade to secure contracts led to the
jailing of more than 130 officials and business people in Brazil by November 2018.
Even incumbent and former presidents have fallen as a result of the scandal.
The public has become increasingly disenchanted with democratic politics, as
governments are perceived to be self-serving and corrupt.

There is widespread agreement that the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean are not growing fast enough. There are many reasons for this, among them the end of the commodities boom, large fiscal deficits, corruption, the electoral cycle, and high levels of political uncertainty. While the exact role each of these factors has played is open to debate, it is also true that low growth can be traced back to a simple and at first sight rather more technical issue: low levels of investment, particularly in infrastructure.

Maduro takes the plunge in Venezuela

Trade set to decline across Latin America