ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out the particular features of the various rounds of structural reforms linked to the liberal economic model applied in Latin America and Mexico, to show its impact on the export-led growth strategy and the growing acceptance of foreign portfolio investment (FDI) in the region. It analyses the composition and changes to FDI in Latin America and Mexico since 2000. Since the end of the twentieth century, the accelerated increase in commodity prices attracted large FDI inflows to Latin America, deepening the export-led growth model. Hence, the composition of FDI in Latin America is partly a result of business opportunities created in the 1990s with privatisations, the opening of the financial, telecommunications and public services sectors. The main evidence about the recent behaviour of FDI in Latin America is not only that it is concentrated geographically and by sectors, but also that it is not as stable as supposed by the prevailing orthodoxy.
