New financing trends in Latin America: a bumpy road towards stability, February 2008

Papers in this volume were prepared for a meeting organised by the BIS and the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) of Atlanta in Mexico City in May 2007. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BIS or the institutions represented at the meeting. Individual papers (or excerpts thereof) may be reproduced or translated with the authorisation of the authors concerned. iii Foreword In May 2007 the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) of Atlanta hosted a meeting in Mexico City on " New financing trends in Latin America: a bumpy road towards stability ". The meeting, which was chaired by Philip Turner of the BIS, brought together senior officials from central banks, finance ministries, the private sector, multilateral institutions and academia to discuss issues and challenges from the most recent financing developments observed across the region. Five main issues were addressed at the meeting: recent trends in Latin America, the influence of certain idiosyncratic features on financial developments in the region, the benefits and challenges of the development of domestic local currency bond markets, the implications for monetary policy and the coordination of debt management policies between central banks and finance ministries and, finally, the implications for financial stability. This meeting was a " first " as a collaborative effort between the BIS and the FRB Atlanta, and was organised at the initiative of the BIS Representative Office for the Americas (inaugurated in 2002) and the FRB Atlanta Americas Center (created in 2005). Given the significance of the topics discussed, we decided to publish in this BIS Papers series the contributions by by the Bank of Spain, and the background documents prepared for this event. We would like to thank all the participants in the meeting for their valuable contributions to the discussions. Also, we would like to thank Camilo E. Tovar (BIS) and Myriam Quispe-Agnoli (FRB Atlanta) for coordinating and organising the meeting, as well as for putting together this publication.