Governments in Latin America and the Caribbean are likely to have their hands filled promoting job creation, maintaining social expenditures and transfers and investing in education even as average growth for the region slows to 1.3% this year, according to a report emanating from a recently meeting of the World Economic Forum. (WEF). And with the economies of the region having still not gotten past the debilitating effects of COVID-19, the WEF is recommending that the region’s key policy priorities focus on reactivating job markets, curbing the rising cost of living, improving tax collection and sheltering vulnerable groups. “2023 is going to be a very challenging year for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. It will mark the end of a decade in which the region’s annual growth rate has averaged only 0.9%, an even worse performance than during the ‘lost decade’ of the 1980s. This is not just one bad business cycle; it is a structural trap of low growth, high inequality, weak institutions and poor governance,” the WEF asserts.
