Business News

Latin America saw 41 million emerge from poverty since 2002

Nov 30, 2010, 21:45 GMT

Santiago - Latin American countries managed to get 41 million people out of poverty since 2002 and improved the distribution of income, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said Tuesday.

Progress was particularly significant in Argentina, Venezuela and Peru, which reduced poverty by 20-30 per cent, ECLAC said.

In Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Panama the reduction was around 10 per cent, where income distribution was also greatly improved.

'There is a generalized trend towards the reduction of poverty, with the exception of Costa Rica,' ECLAC's executive secretary Alicia Barcena said.

The progress, which still leaves Latin America with some 180 million poor, was accomplished by countercyclical fiscal and social policies.

'This is the first time in history in which Latin America managed to reduce poverty immediately after an economic crisis like that of 2008-9,' Barcena noted.

Given the good economic prospects for 2011, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay had reduced poverty rates to around 11 per cent of the population, the lowest in Latin America.

Countries like Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, however, continued to have at least half their population under the poverty line.

'There are indeed very different realities in Latin America, but in all cases we see progress,' Barcena said.

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