Date: March 31, 2008

Author: Mimi Whitefield

Source: Miami Herald 

This week some 6,000 government finance officials, international bankers and the groups they lend to will converge on Miami Beach for the Inter-American Development Bank's annual meeting.

The meeting of the IDB, which distributes development loans and grants to the countries of the Americas, rotates among various cities in the hemisphere.

The last time the meeting was held in South Florida was 1987 -- and it was a vastly different time. Latin America was suffering through a debt crisis in what became known as the lost decade when economies all over the region languished and country after country balked when it came to repaying massive debt loads.

There was also a rancorous fight over control of the bank: The United States wanted to increase its veto power over loans in exchange for upping its contribution to the bank. (The IDB lends money for development projects using contributions from its member nations and repayment promises).

When then-U.S. Treasury Secretary James A. Baker suggested progress was being made in easing the debt burden, Joaquin Cuadra Chamorro, then president of Nicaragua's Central Bank, responded that Baker's address ``was the most surrealistic thing I've seen in my life.''

Since then Latin American countries have slowly clawed their way back -- and in recent years the region has experienced its briskest growth in three decades, thanks to a boom in commodity prices.

As international business reporter Jane Bussey points out in today's cover story, ''Who Shared in the Boom?'' (page 18), some Latin American companies have ridden the boom to unprecedented profits and the middle-class is growing -- but still poverty persists.

While the IDB meets with no major financial crises on the horizon, there are a few worrisome clouds -- the U.S. slowdown and a dip in commodity prices -- that participants need to keep on their screens.