May 1, 2006
A number of consumer-oriented companies are growing strongly in Latin America. Here's how some of the top companies by sector compare to their global peers.
Latin America has long been seen as a land of commodity exporters, stretching unbroken from Bolivia's colonial mines in Potosí to the still rich Buenaventura deposits in Peru. This image of being an extractor is hard to shake, especially since the region has plenty of mineral veins to feed China's insatiable commodity thirst. Even Chile, which has one of the most sophisticated and egalitarian economies in Latin America, relies on copper for 40% of its exports.Yet a handful of nimble consumer-oriented companies are turning in financial results that rival those of similar companies in faster growing markets, drawing the attention of investors from the dusty American heartland to the jam-p