Overall regional trends

During the last two decades, the economy of the Latin American countries, taken as a whole, has experienced a marked expansion and has undergone structural changes of real significance. Measured in 1960 prices, the region's gross product, which had barely exceeded 40 billion dollars in 1950, rose to more than 135 billion in 1970. Output of ingot steel, which was just over 1 million tons in 1950, was more than 15 million in 1970. Nevertheless, despite these and similar indicators that could be taken into account, it would be wrong to assume that the regional economy had achieved the combination of conditions needed for development to become self-sustaining. On the contrary: the figures show that the pace of growth of the regional economy has not even been sufficient to maintain the region's relative position in the world economy. In the two decades under consideration, the annual rate of growth of the world economy was 5.5 per cent, while that of Latin America was 5.2 per cent. In terms of population growth, however, the difference is greater, since the world growth rate was 3.5 per cent and the Latin American rate only 2.4 per cent.