Trade between the European Union and Latin America is growing in importance, currently amounting to $100 billion a year. However, there are potential problems for European businesses seeking to move into this market. The North American Free Trade Agreement linking Canada and the USA with Mexico has had a serious impact on European trade with Mexico and the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which aims to further the economic integration of the western hemisphere, and an increasing tendency towards dollarisation in Latin America, will pose additional challenges to European trade and investment in the region.
This substantial A4 paperback seeks to advise those contemplating trading or investing in any or all of the Latin‐American countries, from Cuba and Costa Rica to Chile and Argentina. It commences with an 86‐page summary which gives brief governmental, social, cultural and other notes on each of the 18 countries making up the region. These are written by analysts and experts from the European‐Latin American Business Information Services organisation, which is the driving force behind the book’s publication. These summaries can be very frank; for example: “corruption is widespread in Colombia and complicates the activities of local and foreign firms investing in or trading with the country”; but they are very current: “Mireya Moscosco, Panama’s first woman president, took office in September 1999”. There follow 39 chapters, written by financial and subject specialists drawn from across the world, which together provide background information on the continent’s economy, natural resources, infrastructure, telecommunications, manufacturing, financial services and market potential. Some of these chapters are in the form of case studies, but most are general descriptive analyses, such as urban transport in Latin America by Ramon Vilardell of a Spanish engineering consultancy.
The remaining sections of the work comprise a practical guide, a directory of key contacts for each country and a statistical profile. The practical guide continues the practice of having articles written by local and subject specialists and concentrates on legal aspects of commerce in Latin America: commercial law, tax law, labour law, environmental law and transfer pricing regulations. There are also interesting contributions on corruption in Latin America (“The fight against corruption requires more than sending people to prison”) and on the benefits and disadvantages of employing temporary staff.
The publication is bang up‐to‐date. Some of the information is available elsewhere, but no other publication brings it all together in such a convenient format for senior business managers of companies involved in this fascinating region.
