Latin America needs infrastructure, fiscal reform

(dpa) - Latin America needs to invest in infrastructure and carry out fiscal reforms to promote development, OECD Development Centre Director Javier Santiso said Tuesday in the Mexican resort of Cancun.
"China invests 10 per cent of its gross domestic product in infrastructure, and in Latin America the figure is 2 per cent," Santiso said at the World Economic Forum on Latin America.
In a press conference, he said that new fiscal policies are needed, too, but stressed that such reforms must be long term.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) presented in Cancun its Latin American Economic Outlook 2008, which was made public in November, mentioning four key issues for development: fiscal policy, pension reform, investment in telecommunications and trade relations with China and India.
Venezuelan analyst Moises Naim said that fiscal reform undertaken by countries across the region has moved forward at varying speed, and in some cases has not achieved the desired objectives.
He predicted that governments are likely to feel strong future pressure to subsidize food, which will cause unbalanced fiscal policy.
The forum, which ends Wednesday, attracted a score of leftist protestors, who waved Mexican flags and fake dollar bills and wore masks of US President George W Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his predecessor, Vicente Fox.