Costa Rica leads Latin America in infrastructure investment, but still not enough, says UN

October 15^th, 2014 (InsideCostaRica.com) Costa Rica headed the ranking of infrastructure investment by using 5.4% of its GDP on infrastructure projects, followed by Uruguay (5.08%), Nicaragua (4.93%), Bolivia (4.47%), Peru (4.46%), Brazil (4.1%), Mexico (3.32%), Panama (3.32%) and Argentina (2.89%), in a recent report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

However, all of the countries in the region fall short of what ECLAC estimates as the countries’ needs, stating that each country in the report should be spending about 6.2% of its GDP on current and expected infrastructure needs, though this number is “an approximation and not a strict recommendation,” the report concedes.

Bottoming out the rankings of Latin American nations by infrastructure investment were Chile (2.83%), Colombia (2.45%), El Salvador (2.3%), Ecuador (1.58%), Guatemala (1.55%) and Paraguay (1.51%).

As a whole, the region is now spending 3.4% of its combined GDP on infrastructure, an improvement from the 2.7% of GDP seen over the previous decade.  Transport has seen the most significant investment, followed by energy, telecommunications, water and sanitation.

“Investment in infrastructure projects contributes to increasing the coverage and quality of public services and reduces the costs associated with mobility and logistics.

“This in turn improves the access to markets of goods, services, employment and financing, providing a favorable environment for improvements in the population’s overall well-being,” the report states.