While Latin America has steadily grown into a heterogeneous group of countries, developing at different speeds, embracing diverse political ideologies – from passionately populist to pragmatically pro-market – and ranging from commodities exporters to cheap-labour manufacturers, there is one, crucial area that unites the region: infrastructure. Or rather, the lack of it, which keeps the region segmented, and imposes prohibitive costs onto exporters.
“Shipping a container from Europe to Montevideo [in Uruguay] costs less than from Montevideo to [the port of] Rosario in Argentina,” said Paul Riezler, the president of Eurocámara Uruguay, the association representing chambers of commerce from EU members in Uruguay, in a recent interview with local newspaper El Pais.
