What developing countries closer to achieving developed country status?

[Motul]

Originally Posted by derechaconservadora

its senseless to compare ANUAL gdp with TOTAL value of companies (or billionaires as some people do).

in any case chilean big companies have more value than the colombian big companies. how do you meassure that? in the stock market. and chilean stock market is bigger than the colombian. plus chilean stock market is the ONLY in latinamerica that have a higher value than the anual gdp of his country. just developed nations have more value in stock exchange than in the anual gdp.

Colombia is still building it's "stock market culture". As of now, only 84 companies are listed, thats less than half of those listed on Santiago..

But guess which MILA country stock market grows fastest? In the near future, Colombian stock market will surpass santiago's, as more and more companies are making the decision to go public. This is only natural as Colombia is much larger than Chile.

[Baleares]

Slow down guys. The World will end this year and no country will get developed anymore except for South America that would be the only place that'll last.

[hirap1234]

helping poor communities recognize and preserve its cultural assets, providing new economic opportunities and enabling development on its diverse social, cultural and physical background.

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[Skyprince]

I think we forget Kazakhstan.. they have good infrastructure & per-capita income that may rise into developed economy in few years to come, especially with rise in oil price. Many things are brand new in Kazakhstan, its capital Astana is an architectural marvel

Another is Panama. From what I saw Panama's infrastructure & living standard is nearly comparable to Chile's ( though slighly lower )

How about Dominican Republic and Costa Rica ?

[Motul]

Panama is advancing fast as one of the fastest growing countries on Earth.. Watch it be developed before any other on latam..

People tend to overlook it because of it's small population (3 million).

DR has a long way to go, and it's growth rate isn't that spectacular.. It's more on the range of countries like Colombia and Peru (and even a bit behind these).

CR is another good option, it's historically a country with decent living standards, no army, educated population, well developed high tech sector, etc

Another country that is vastly overlooked is JAMAICA!.. they have a good HDI and almost 10k per capita.. And governance there seems to have it's act together, as opposed to many Latin American countries.

[Skyprince]

Indeed, Panama was way down than Chile, Brazil, Argentina just few years ago and now am impressed with its income level

And am abit shocked with DR , didn't know its income level not changing much and even its HDI that low. Its GDP per-capita was quite comparable to Malaysia I think just 10 years ago

And Jamaica- Seriously I always had idea that Jamaica is still one of the lowest among all Middle-income nations with per-capita GDP just around USD5k PPP... never knew it has now reached 10k

Originally Posted by Motul

Panama is advancing fast as one of the fastest growing countries on Earth.. Watch it be developed before any other on latam..

People tend to overlook it because of it's small population (3 million).

DR has a long way to go, and it's growth rate isn't that spectacular.. It's more on the range of countries like Colombia and Peru (and even a bit behind these).

CR is another good option, it's historically a country with decent living standards, no army, educated population, well developed high tech sector, etc

Another country that is vastly overlooked is JAMAICA!.. they have a good HDI and almost 10k per capita.. And governance there seems to have it's act together, as opposed to many Latin American countries.

[VECTROTALENZIS]

Russia will be developed in 10 years.

It's GDP per capita is 16 736 and HDI is 0.755.

[derechaconservadora]

Originally Posted by Skyprince

I think we forget Kazakhstan.. they have good infrastructure & per-capita income that may rise into developed economy in few years to come, especially with rise in oil price. Many things are brand new in Kazakhstan, its capital Astana is an architectural marvel

Another is Panama. From what I saw Panama's infrastructure & living standard is nearly comparable to Chile's ( though slighly lower )

How about Dominican Republic and Costa Rica ?

Panama isnt comparable to Chile at all. Other culture. Costa Rica on the other side, its very similar to chile, better educated population, inteligent politics, they had some years ago some chilean exiled politics, etc. Costa Rica used to have the better social standards with Chile, Cuba and Uruguay (and in some cases with argentina) but sadly costa rica had some bad years in economy, but now its seems they are recovering the lost time. Costa Rica still holds some number one stats in latam as life expectancy. the life expectancy in chile, costa rica and cuba is higher than the life expectancy at birth of the yanks. the rest of latam is far. if we want to look the real development i think we are losing those stats (as life expectancy, percentage of undernourished people, people living with less than 2 dollars daily, newborn death, education) in most of this stats chile have allways been one of the leaders of latam even when the country was poor compared to other latam neighbours. so that means, that the economic evolution is just 1 factor. not all. as example in 1980 peru and brazil had higher per capita than chile (PPP) but still chile was more developed cause those social stats. so as you see development has few with current economy but most with social development. better educated people now, means better wealth of population tomorrow. thats the reason i think some countries as peru or colombia still needs a long long road to be developed. first improve your education then the rest.

chile just has the 3% of latinamerican population, but have more than 20% of the better universities in latinamerica. thats mean a lot (even when chilean people think other universities are shit, because people here compare our country with first world and not with latinamerica)

[George W. Bush]

The whole question of the thread is, if taken literally, a bit meaningless. I never understood how a country can determine the point in time where it suddenly changes its status from "underdeveloped" to "developed". Economic and social development is a gradual process. In this sense all the number games using GDP (either @PPP or nominal ), HDI, IHDI and what not seem a bit futile to me. It is like asking which exact number of hairs should be used as threshold to distinguish between baldness and non-baldness.

[Yuri S Andrade]

How come? You need to establish some parameters to define things. Of course it's a process (as most of the things), but yet we have "developed" and "non-developed" countries, don't we?

[George W. Bush]

Yes, we can define anything what we want. But defining an exact threshold to distinguish between "being developed" and "not being developed" relative to any set of criteria and associated criteria weights is completely arbitrary.
We can make relative comparisons between countries (i.e. which country performs better on a certain development parameter), but asking the question if a country is "developed" or "not developed" in an absolute way doesn't make much sense.

[Alex Roney]

I think Panama's growth is mostly artificial based on real estate and the service sector. Apparently much of Panama city's skyline is uninhabited not to mention the country's big inequality where extreme poverty and hunger is still prevalent outside of the capital city. I'd take Costa Rica over Panama anyday, the latter might have higher growth numbers and GDP per capita but the former is more developed in terms of social indicators.

[Skyprince]

Social indicators are over-rated. You don't see people from Saudi Arabia migrating to Sri Lanka to enjoy "higher social indicators" , but u see plenty of Srilankans migrating to Saudi Arabia to enjoy " Higher economic indicators "

I'd say , "economic opportunity" is the key. With my qualification, it's much easier to get good-paying job in places like Saudi Arabia or Panama, than say, Srilanka, Philippines or Costa Rica despite their relatively good social indicator

[derechaconservadora]

Originally Posted by Skyprince

Social indicators are over-rated. You don't see people from Saudi Arabia migrating to Sri Lanka to enjoy "higher social indicators" , but u see plenty of Srilankans migrating to Saudi Arabia to enjoy " Higher economic indicators "

I'd say , "economic opportunity" is the key. With my qualification, it's much easier to get good-paying job in places like Saudi Arabia or Panama, than say, Srilanka, Philippines or Costa Rica despite their relatively good social indicator

mmmm not. costa rica have the highest immigration in latinamerica (as proportion). so you are wrong. never, never judge a country for the pictures you see in this site. and is just ridiculous to compare srilanka to costa rica, just senseless. also very ridiculous to compare filipinas to costa rica. come on, look any chart and you will know what im talking about. costa rica is near of 10,000 per capita nominal also. just cant compare with those very poor asiain countries


and social wellfare of course play a big role in immigration, thats the only reason why there are so many chileans in sweden or canada (the highest latinamerican comunities there) and so few in the USA (probably the little latinamerican comunity there) .

social indicator are all. all. money is just a interchange paper, nothing else. the reality is in what you get for your money. many poor countries are too expensives, so they seem to have a higher nominal GDP but is fake.

[Skyprince]

Originally Posted by derechaconservadora

mmmm not. costa rica have the highest immigration in latinamerica (as proportion). so you are wrong. never, never judge a country for the pictures you see in this site. and is just ridiculous to compare srilanka to costa rica, just senseless. also very ridiculous to compare filipinas to costa rica. come on, look any chart and you will know what im talking about. costa rica is near of 10,000 per capita nominal also. just cant compare with those very poor asiain countries


and social wellfare of course play a big role in immigration, thats the only reason why there are so many chileans in sweden or canada (the highest latinamerican comunities there) and so few in the USA (probably the little latinamerican comunity there) .

social indicator are all. all. money is just a interchange paper, nothing else. the reality is in what you get for your money. many poor countries are too expensives, so they seem to have a higher nominal GDP but is fake.

Lol, I meant the comparison of material life between Panama & Costa Rica. Of course CR has far higher income & much more developed than Philippines & Sri Lanka.

Social welfare is good, but what I wanted say is, it's too over-rated. You don't find many rich Emiratis or Qataris migrating to USA, Canada or Australia for better social indicator or to enjoy "democracy", to speak "freely" against anyone etc. It's largely about economic opportunity IMO. Maybe the Chileans find it harder to flock USA than more open Canada, Norway with easier immigration policy and already good number of Latin Americans they can stay connected to ?

[Motul]

Child Poverty in Latam:

[Skyprince]

wow, it seems Brazil is a country of extremes, with some of the highest living standard in Latam and among the lowest too.

And based on above map Peru seems to have quite larger *child* poverty than Colombia ? Both aren't much different in GDP percapita

[Cobucci]

Originally Posted by Skyprince

wow, it seems Brazil is a country of extremes, with some of the highest living standard in Latam and among the lowest too.

Yes, Brazil is worldwide known by its inequalities. It was the world's most unequal in the 1990's, accordingly to Gini Coefficient.

It's rich and poor at the same time. Nevertheless, in the last decade, Brazil has become much more equal. Millions of people from the poorest classes has risen to the medium class (~50 million people).

Some Brazilians states/major cities have an HDI comparable to Italy or France, nonetheless some have it comparable to South Africa.

[Diego N]

Originally Posted by Skyprince

wow, it seems Brazil is a country of extremes, with some of the highest living standard in Latam and among the lowest too.

And based on above map Peru seems to have quite larger *child* poverty than Colombia ? Both aren't much different in GDP percapita

You are right. Brazil is really extreme in these aspects. The good part is that most of brazilians live in the light blue colors. Known that, we can say that the biggest problems of Brazil are its "poverty fields with few population" in the amazon, for example, and the huge difference between its states and cities (wich is hidden by the good numbers of populous states and cities).
What I mean is, even having huge "red parts" in the map, the poverty in this area is hidden by the big population in good areas. So we need even more money to the poor areas for them to reach some better standards (but still bad standards).
I wrote a lot and said nothing

[Menandro]

Originally Posted by Alex Roney

I think Panama's growth is mostly artificial based on real estate and the service sector. Apparently much of Panama city's skyline is uninhabited not to mention the country's big inequality where extreme poverty and hunger is still prevalent outside of the capital city. I'd take Costa Rica over Panama anyday, the latter might have higher growth numbers and GDP per capita but the former is more developed in terms of social indicators.

Actually Panama's success is not based on real estate at all. There is not a boom there and just a few projects are under construction right now. The government have applied some strict laws in order to protect the country against any kind of bubble.
Secondly, although Panama's economy is based on services, that doesn't mean its economy isn't meant to be successful. On the contrary, that's part of its success. Panama has known how to differentiate its economy from the rest of the countries in the Americas. That's why Panama is following the model of Singapur or Hong Kong. You should read a little bit of what's going on in Panama.
And finally, we have to mention that Panama is doing a great job in terms of social indicators: right now is the country with the highest investment on education (reengineering the educational process), health and other social services. In fact, if you want to compare Panama and CR in terms of HDI (Human Development Index), Panama is above CR. Panama is the 4th country in Latin America with the highest HDI.
Total Poverty in Panama is around 23% and it keeps decreasing at a rate of nearly 2% every two years.
The country has the highest minimum wage in Latin America, along with Argentina.
The unemployment rate is at 4%.
Its literacy rate is expected to be 97.5% in 2013.