| > Would any other country have offered them loans on better terms? Correa turned away from the US. So, probably? He then canceled some of the debt which destroyed direct foreign investment and took the country into a major recession. > Decent infrastructure The Coca Codo Sinclair Dam project is an absolute failure. It's not running at capacity and didn't lower the price of electricity. Lowering the price of electricity would have helped pull many out of poverty. The roads in Ecuador are absolutely abysmal. No interstate system, very slow to move through the country by car or bus. The smaller cities in the south receive much less support than Quito and Guayaquil. The healthcare system isn't funded. > growing exports They are experiencing the Dutch Disease. They export bananas and oil but most of the rich countries have better economies with less natural resources. They are too focused on commodities at the expense of other sectors. > one of the most stable economies in Latin America But only because of the dollarization of the economy. That prevented Correa from doing further damage by printing money and turning the country into Venezuela. > They took the risk and seem to be on a good development path. Most people I talk to say that times were better under Correa when public spending was much higher. Obviously it was unsustainable. The protests this year that shutdown Quito and Cuenca ended with the agreement that the government would spend $1 to $2 billion on oil subsidies. The demand for unsustainable public spending from the public is high. https://tradingeconomics.com/ecuador/government-spending https://www.statista.com/statistics/531556/national-debt-of-... |