Keynote:

• Alejandro Werner, Director, Western Hemisphere Department, International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Latin America's GDP is set to grow 2 percent in 2019, a jump from 1 percent last year. "It’s a reflection of the Brazilian economy expanding at a faster pace and Argentina contracting by less than it did in 2018," said the IMF's Alejandro Werner at the Latin America Business Conference 2018. Werner went on to explain the various factors affecting growth, from a move away from 2018's global financial tightening to the change in commodity prices.

Learn more about conference co-organizers, Young Profesionals of the Americas.

Speakers:

• Daniel Vogel, CEO, Bitso
• Pierpaolo Barbieri, CEO and founder, Ualá
• Bernardo Novick, Head of ZX Ventures
• Paulo Passoni, Founder and CIO, 30 Knots Capital (moderator)

How can you be a succesful entrepreneur in Latin America? What is the next technological transformation waiting to take place? Entrepreneurs from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico share insights at the Latin America Business Conference 2019, from the advent of mobile payment systems to venture capital allocations focused on having a postive impact. 

Learn about conference co-organizers, Young Profesionals of the Americas.

Chaos as Venezuelan soldiers open-fire on civilians. Yahoo Finance's Zack Guzman and Jeanie Ahn, along with Go-To Gal Podcast Host Jaclyn Mellone discuss with the head of the AS/COA Venezuela Working Group, Guillermo Zubillaga.

"[Nicolás] Maduro is now in a very weak spot. There are 50 or more nations that support the head of the National Assembly; even Russia and China understand that Maduro will have a very hard time trying to be able to get that oil off of the ground," said Zubillaga. "So far [the opposition has] been kind of successful in at least putting Maduro in a situation where he has to respond to them rather than the other way around."

Speakers:

• Iván Duque, President of Colombia
• Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Contributor, CNBC (interviewer)

Colombian President Iván Duque said it wasn't hard to step up and denounce the embattled Nicolás Maduro, comparing watching the crisis in Venezuela to hearing a neighbor beat his wife every night. When you see the neighbor in the elevator the next day, said Duque, you can’t simply pretend things are normal. “It was my moral duty to denounce that dictator [Nicolás Maduro],” said Duque at an event in Washington, DC, adding that he hopes Maduro is eventually tried by the International Criminal Court. He said that, more than discuss what will happen to Maduro, the international community should be focused on doing everything it can to bring about the end of the dictatorship. He called on both the Chinese and the Venezuelan military to recognize Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's interim commander-in-chief.

On domestic issues, Duque and Caruso-Cabrera covered everything from boosting Colombian GDP not through oil exports but the creative industries (aka the Orange Economy), treating the coca problem wholistically, involving Afro-Colombian communities in state projects, and the need for Colombia’s special transitional justice court system to adequately mete out proper justice for former FARC commanders found responsible for crimes. He also said he did not begrudge his original mentor, former President and now Senator Álvaro Uribe, for publicly disagreeing with him on his tax plan. Disagreements in democracy and even within a party are healthy, Duque said, adding that Uribe’s decision to return to serve in Congress after his presidency—as John Quincy Adams also did—was patriotic. Duque pushed back on the characterization of him as from the right politically. Security is a public good, he said, and a lack of it disproportionately affects the poor. Entrepreneurship simply makes common sense. He talked at length about how unregulated market access can open the doors to “voracious capitalism,” and said that one of the aims of his administration is to work on “closing the gap between rich and poor and talking about social justice. Whether that’s right or left, I don't know or I don’t care. I want to make Colombia a better place.”