27 October 2011
Business and government leaders from across Latin America will descend on Miami on Friday (10/28) for the annual Latin Trade Symposium to discuss how the region is changing and what needs to be done to keep momentum going as Asian economies continue to grow and the U.S. and Europe face economic challenges.
The daylong series of speeches and panel discussions “is called ‘Latin America on the Global Stage: Competitiveness from the Grassroots Up’,” said Latin Trade magazine Editorial Director Jane Bussey. It’s “a forum where business and government leaders, social development leaders and social entrepreneurs get together to discuss what’s going on in the region, how things are changing and what this means for both people… in government and private business.”
Things kick off with a keynote address from Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, former British Minister of State and chairman of Global Affairs for FTI Consulting Inc., and is followed by a panel discussion looking at how corporate social responsibility and sustainability can give companies the edge in the region. The panel includes Odebrecht CEO Marcelo Odebrecht, who’s Brazil-based company has played an integral role in several large Miami projects, including the AmericanAirlines Arena and the Miami Intermodal Center, and Gerardo Mato, CEO of Global Banking for the America for HSBC.
“Then we have a panel on regional dynamics and the global race,” Bussey said, “looking at how Latin America is changing in terms of trade partners, sources of investment [and] how companies in Latin America are no longer acquisition targets.
“This is a question of how do you have to do business today, and looking at different sources for markets, investment and trade,” she added.
China in particular has invested heavily across Latin America, as it fans out across the globe in search of natural resources to fuel its growing economy. Foreign investments in the region through the first half of 2011 were worth $82.65 billion, according to a Fox News Latino analysis of a United Nations report. Of that $44 billion went to Brazil while $7 billion was funneled to Colombia.
Meanwhile, many discussions will attempt to look ahead for Latin America, and identify what practices and programs ought to be put in place to build on the region’s recent successes.
Luanne Zurlo, president and founder of Worldfund, a nonprofit that focuses on training teachers and principals in schools in Mexico and Brazil, said “the single most important factor for more rapid economic growth and social development in the region is the quality of education.
“Human capital is a problem in Latin America,” she added, “increasingly corporations and the elite are starting to focus on that because it’s starting to hurt them.”
Those challenges and changes are the event’s prevailing themes, according to Bussey of Latin Trade.
“Latin America has had to move faster and in new directions to try to keep up with what’s going on in Asia and all over the world and this is a chance for people in government to talk about their initiatives,” she said. “In a lot of these countries, the emerging middle class is just one step away from being members of the poor, so how these countries manage to keep their economies going is what’s most important.”