The past 18 months have seen, what started as a local US mortgage crisis turn into one of the deepest credit crunches the world has ever seen. Parallels are now being drawn to the deep depression of the 1930s and the ugly face of protectionism that accompanied it. While the countries of South America are not immune to such forces, the region appears to have fared much better than many others in recent months, with economic growth, levels of foreign direct investment and overall trading volumes in positive territory. In terms of foreign direct investment (FDI), South America had a very good 2008, with statistics compiled by UNCTAD indicating that the main countries secured inward capital flows of just over USD85 billion, up more than 23 on 2007's level of USD69 billion (see Table 1).
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