Growth in Latin America – Why US and UK firms should take a closer look at these markets?
Saying that Latin America has a vas growth potential is an understatement these days. Latin America offers vast extensions of land; fairly unpopulated, with young educated people, good weather conditions and vast natural resources. This region has been promising since the early twenty first century, when WWI was devastating Europe. The first subsidiary factory of Ford Motors Corporation outside the US was established in Argentina in 1914, when large amounts of immigrants were fleeing Europe to the more stable, secure and promising lands of South America.
Unfortunately, since the early 30s Latin America had a regrettable story fraught with coup d’etat, totalitarian governments, populism, high inflation, instability, corruption, confiscations, nationalization, and a general impoverishment of its citizens. However, just recently, it seems some of these Latin American countries have effectively turned the corner; no one would question now the stability and prospects of Chile, Brazil, Mexico or Peru.
In terms of the global legal market, the English/American way of doing business has succeeded and expanded globally making US and UK firms’ presence almost globally, except in South America. If you look at the offices of the firms of the White Circle in London or the top US firms in New York, you will find they have offices in the major European cities, Asia and North America, but very little –almost negligible- presence in Latin America.
Is it now the time to catch up and invest some time and resources in this region? There are of course, potential risks in the region, but the leap towards development could happen very rapidly. Also, law firms promote trade and export new concepts and ideas, which is also something necessary in Latin America. When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America – he had travelled to the US to study the penitentiary system and ended up studying the whole democratic and republican system in the US – concluded that lawyers (and the system of trials by juries) had a great influence in the distillation to the society of the democratic and republican values.