Following an economic collapse in 2020, the region’s growth rebounded to 6.8 percent in 2021, driven by the strong growth of its trading partners, the increase in the prices of raw materials and favorable external financing conditions.

Advances in vaccination, continued fiscal support in some countries (such as Chile and Colombia), and accumulated savings from 2020 also supported growth, according to the IMF.

However, the Fund’s forecast for 2022 is less optimistic and prognoses that economic growth will slow to 2.4 percent, lowering the initial forecast of three percent made last October.

The IMF considers that this slowdown is inevitable, as the economies are returning to their levels of Gross Domestic Product prior to the pandemic.

In this regard, it stressed that this decrease responds to other challenges, such as the slowdown in growth in China and the United States, the continuous supply interruptions, the tightening of financial and financing conditions and the appearance of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.

In the opinion of IMF specialists, the three great challenges that the countries of the region must face are: guaranteeing the sustainability of public finances, increasing potential growth and doing so in a way that achieves social cohesion and resolves social inequalities.

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