SAO PAOLO, BRAZIL-For the past two years, the commercial real estate news out of South and Central America has been that Brazil has been exploding with growth, while Mexico is struggling due to a crime problem. Now, as prices rise due to Brazil’s success, the region is seeing the smaller countries rise to the top, including Panama and Costa Rica, according to a recently released report by CB Richard Ellis.
The growing consumer class in Brazil, as well as the upcoming FIFA 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics, brought the country a lot of attention from investors. However, that attention has risked overheating the country’s economy and has accelerated inflation, according to the CBRE report “Outlook for Latin America’s Commercial Real Estate Markets.”
Asieh Mansour, the company’s head of Americas research, also tells GlobeSt.com that she worries about the massive infrastructure improvement plans for the country to get ready for the global attention for the sporting events. “I think in the long term, the infrastructure expenditures can only add to the economy, but when I look at the construction timeline it just seems to aggressive,” she says.
Mansour says there are other countries south of Mexico that are generating a lot of investor interest. Panama, though a small country, should benefit greatly from the expansion of the Panama Canal expected in the next few years. The CBRE report projects GDP increases in Panama of more than 7% each year until 2014. “Investors are also looking carefully at Costa Rica, Chile and Columbia,” Mansour says.
Holding back the region has been its lack of transparency, and its reliance on US investment, which could see a dip if a recession returns. The report thus suggests Latin American will cool somewhat, with total economic growth moderating to about 4.7% this year and in 2012, and about 4.2% in the years following. This figure still ranks better than the long-term growth expected for the US (2.7%) and Europe (1.7%), but less than Asia (5.3%), according to the report.
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