Energy policy, business and competitivity in Latin America

At Hotel Regal Pacific a new meeting of Foro Latinoamericano Buenos Aires took place. Organized by CADAL in this opportunity the speaker was Raúl Ferro who referred to ''Energy policy, business and competitivity in Latin America''. During his presentation, Ferro referred to the dream of integration of the 90, the models of opening and nationalism in the region with its respective results and tendencies for the sector. Raúl Ferro is Director of Contents Development at Business News Americas and member of CADAL's Advisory Council.

At Hotel Regal Pacific a new meeting of Foro Latinoamericano Buenos Aires took place. Organized by CADAL in this opportunity the speaker was Raúl Ferro who referred to ''Energy policy, business and competitivity in Latin America''. During his presentation, Ferro referred to the dream of integration of the 90, the models of opening and nationalism in the region with its respective results and tendencies for the sector. Raúl Ferro is Director of Contents Development at Business News Americas and member of CADAL's Advisory Council. Before that he helped in various business and finance publications: he was Journalistic Director of the magazine America Economia and he also served at The Andean Report in Peru, The South Pacific Mail in Chile, the Latin American Newsletters group from London, Spanish Trends from Madrid and McGraw Hill News Services and Lagniappe Letter from New York. He is member of CADAL Advisory Council.

Ferro analized the electric interconections in South America and the problems that followed after the policy of integration during the 90s: real's devaluation (Brazil), convertibility crisis (Argentina), political crisis in bolivia, consolidation of the bolivarian vision, scalation of energy prices, reappearance of Nationa Oil Companies and the matter of energy sovereignity/nationalism. For Ferro, the results have been: supremacy of internal political strategies, hardening of contractual conditions and disrespect of contracts.

The speaker stated that currently two models are consolidating: Opening vs. nationalists, whose consequences are the end of integration as we know it and complement instead of integration. Thus a map of energy policy appears in Latin America, divided by open countries (Chile, Colombia, Peru, Central America and Brazil) and state control (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina).

Ferro also separately analyzed the hydrocarbon and electricity sectors. In the last case he distinguised winner countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Chile and Peru, and looser countries like Argentina and Ecuador. Finally, the director of Business News Americas referred to the tendencies: Integration through virtual gaspipes and border electric interconnections, the tariff dilema, CO2 emissions, nuclear energy, the dilema of renewals, maduration of eolic energy and carbon plants.

The participants of the Forum, among them businessmen, foreign diplomats, analysts and legislative consultants, recieved the las edition of Perspectiva Magazine with a dossier entitled "Alternative energies". This new number of Perspectiva highlights that there currently exists an ample consensus on the urgent necessity of reducing our dependence on hydrocarbon and the development of cleaner energy sources. Perspectiva magazine is edited in Colombia by Instituto de Ciencia Política, with the support of the Center for International Private Enterprise from United States and the collaboration of a network of institutes in different Latin American countries. CADAL represents Perspectiva magazine in Uruguay, being in charge of the presentation, distribution and promotion of it in the country.