世界银行-第1章-拉丁美洲和加勒比地区状况（英）

C H A P T E R 1The State of the LAC RegionADVANCE COPYThis chapter is an advance excerpt from the upcoming World Bank report “Organized Crime and Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean” which will be released on Monday, April 28th, 2025.OverviewThe outlook for the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region has become more uncertain as modest advances on the internal front are being compounded by a more challenging external scenario. Progress continues in the fight against inflation, although the last mile is proving long and the pace of interest rate declines has slowed. Consumer and business confidence continue to rise or remain stable, tourism in the Caribbean has fully recovered, and job markets in the largest economies continue to tighten, facilitating modest poverty reduction.The external environment, however, has changed substantially in the six months since the October 2024 Latin America and Caribbean Economic Review (LACER), with both short-term and long-term consequences.  Inflation in the advanced countries, instead of being nearly vanquished as previously expected, looks to persist, delaying further interest rate cuts and constraining regional authorities’ room to loosen monetary policy further.  The apparent shift toward higher tariffs by the United States casts uncertainty on the nearshoring project, the practice of bringing offshore operations to nearby or friendly countries, and global market access more generally. LAC’s other principal market—China—continues to show sluggish growth. Recent cuts to overseas development assistance by world’s advanced economies will affect some countries acutely. Though over the last decade, growing migratory flows have shifted away from the United States and have increased from one LAC country to another, increased return migration from the United States will strain local labor markets and resources for reintegration.  Finally, the growing expansion of transnational organized crime has elevated crime and violence to be a dominant source of civic discontent and poses acute challenges to governance and development within LAC.These challenges will complicate efforts to reignite growth, redress fiscal imbalances and reduce debt, and regain the advances in reducing poverty of the previous decade. LAC’s growth rates continue to be one of the slowest of any world region. Investment, both public and private, remains subdued and even before the increased uncertainty introduced by the rising US tariffs, there was evidence that the region was potentially missing the boat on “nearshoring”. The modest results in both growth and trade underline the need for progress on the long-standing reform agenda to prepare regional economies for new challenges and potential opportunities.Chapter 1 of this report lays out the recent macroeconomic and social evolution of the region and the near-term challenges it faces, particularly in the realm of growth, trade, and balancing the fiscal accounts. A D V A N C E C O P