By: Staff Writer
May 27, 2025
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said in a new report that bond market debt in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region was higher in 2024 than it was in 2023.
The report, “Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2024,” said: “The international macroeconomic context in which the countries of the region operate points to expected global growth of around 3.2 percent per year for 2024 and 2025. Growth in international trade in goods and services is at 3.1 percent for 2024 and 3.4 percent for 2025. The world’s leading central banks have been lowering interest rates, which has coincided with increasing global liquidity and a stronger dollar. This greater liquidity has translated into increased capital flows, however, these have been towards developed economies.
“In 2024, the region’s debt issuances on bond markets were higher than in 2023. Despite interest rate cuts in international financial markets, the cost of financing remains high. Increased financing costs have driven up interest payments from the region’s economies to the rest of the world, which helps to explain the region’s net resource transfers abroad in 2024.”
The report also said: “In 2024, domestic macroeconomic policy space remained tight. On the fiscal front, regional economies have been under pressure to keep public debt on track as interest payments are expected to reach record highs. On the monetary front, falling inflation and lower interest rates in international markets have helped to lower monetary policy reference rates across the region. However, depreciations in the region’s currencies have affected the speed and magnitude of adjustments in these policy rates.
“The slowdown in economic growth in the countries of the region has continued. In 2024, the region’s economies expanded by an estimated 2.2 percent, and for 2025, regional growth is projected at 2.4 percent. This slow growth in regional GDP has led to the declining share of Latin American and Caribbean economies in global growth and persistently weak employment growth.”
It added: “For the region to break from the trap of low growth capacity, complementary and coherent policies to mitigate business cycle fluctuations and boost long-term trends in regional growth are needed.
“This means increasing policy space to boost the mobilization of financial resources that will help to smooth the business cycle and support the region’s productive transformation for high, inclusive, sustained and sustainable growth.
“In addition, greater policy space is essential if the region is to meet the mitigation and adaptation challenges posed by the fourth industrial revolution and the intensification of climate change.”