It is hard to believe that just five years ago, Argentina defaulted on $81.8bn of debt. A year is a long time in the capital markets, let alone five years, but the reversal of fortunes for sovereigns in Latin America is dramatic by anyone’s standards. New inflows from dedicated emerging market funds are increasing all the time, some governments are running fiscal surpluses so have little need for much bond funding at all, and those that do are switching bond issuance to local currency markets.
Last year, there was $24.9bn of new external sovereign debt from the region, this year there is likely to be $11.6bn, less than half. As $5.7bn has been completed for the year already, that process is well advanced. Colombia, for example, has already completed its external funding for 2007.
