Latin America’s Richest and Poorest Countries

The countries that will boost their per capita wealth most the next five years.

BY LATINVEX STAFF

Which countries in Latin America are the richest? Which are the poorest? Today and tomorrow?

Latinvex analyzed data and forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 18 countries in Latin America for this year, the past five years and the next five years. We used data for gross domestic product based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) per capita GDP in international dollars to measure wealth.

Latin America has an estimated GDP PPP of $12, 328 this year, an increase of 3.6 percent from last year. The next five years – during the period 2013 to 2017 -- its per capita wealth is likely to reach $14,048.

We did not include Argentina, which uses inflated numbers for its Gross Domestic Product, according to the fund. “The IMF has called on Argentina to adopt remedial measures to address the quality of the official GDP … data,” it said in its latest World Economic Outlook report, where it also criticized the lack of reliable inflation data. “The IMF staff is also using alternative measures of GDP growth and inflation for macroeconomic surveillance, including data produced by private analysts, which have shown significantly lower real GDP growth than the official data since 2008.”

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Keywords: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela


THE DATA

Latin America GDP PPP 2012 rank

Latin America GDP PPP Growth Winners 2013-17

Latin America GDP PPP Growth Winners 2008-12

Latin America GDP PPP 2013-17, including average for period

Latin America GDP PPP 2008-12, including average for period