b'30American Journal ofTransportation ajot.comGrowing pain: Latin American economiesLATIN AMERICA struggling to find growthCan nearshoring help relieve the continual growth struggles inTRADE Latin America? By George Lauriat, AJOT BI-ANNUALIn the beginning of Feb- this is nothing new as growthfrom the region recovered in ruary, the International Mon- intheLAChasfrequently2021, surpassing the pre-pan-etary Fund (IMF) published alaggedbehindotherdevel- demic levelsfrom US$1,183 blogentitledLatin Americaopingregions.Thisdespitebillion in 2019 to US$1,237 FacesSlowingGrowthandoften having better economicin 2021. And more recently, HighInflationAmidSocialfundamentalsahigherthe Inter-American Develop-Tensions. The key takeawayGDP, an abundance of naturalmentBank(IDB),intheir from the blog is the struggleresourcesforexports,andaLAC2023TradeTrends for Latin American Countrieswell-establishedsetofwill- Estimatessaidregion-wide (LAC) to economically grow.ingtradingpartners.Byallexportswereup27.8%in AccordingtotheIMFblog,accounts,LACseemingly2021and18.8%in2022, Growththisyearispoisedshouldbegrowingfasteronbothyearssignificantly to slow to just 2 percent, amidthestrengthoftheirexporthigher than the recent peaks higher interest rates and fall- base.TheEconomicCom- years of 2017 at 12.5% and ingcommodityprices.JobmissionForLatinAmerica2018 at 8.3%creation and consumer spend- and the Caribbean (ECLAC),And the difficulty for the ing on goods and services areintheir2022annualreport(PAINcontinued on bothslowing,andconsumerwrote, United States importspage 32)andbusinessconfidenceare weakening. Growth will also be held back by a slowdown in trading partners, particularly the United States and the Euro area.[Editoritalics]More-over, downside risksinclud-ingtighter-than-anticipated financial conditions and Rus-siaswarinUkrainecon-tinue to dominate.Althoughthecircum-stancesmightbedifferent,Container vessel moves through the Panama Canal.EXPANDING CAPACITY TOFL RID SO ADISTRIBUTIONHUBNo congestion Expanded terminal capacity with plenty of room for growthTampa/Orlando I-4 Corridor: 400 million SFMultiple round-trip truck deliveries per day from Port to of distribution center space distribution centersE-commerce, consumer goods, perishablesNew and expanded container services with Central and building materials America, Mexico and AsiaWWW.PORTTB.COM'