Chavez Moran Notes Economic News

Daniel Chavez Moran shares this economic news from the Global Entrepreneur Indicator Business Environment Report, as published in a recent Wall Street Journal article:

“Canadian, Caribbean and Latin-American entrepreneurs have the most positive economic outlook, according to the Global Entrepreneur Indicator Business Environment Report released Friday...More than 90 percent of Canadian entrepreneurs expect improvement in the economy in the coming six months. Nearly three-quarters of entrepreneurs from the Caribbean and Latin America said the same.”


This is good news for the overall economy of Latin America, as the Global Entrepreneur Indicator notes:
“Entrepreneurs and their businesses drive the global business landscape. Tomorrow’s jobs and innovations begin with today’s business owners.”

Other key findings in the report:

• A large majority of entrepreneurs in the U.S. and Latin America / Caribbean regions have experienced an increase in profits in the past six months.
• Latin American / Caribbean entrepreneurs lead the pack regarding increases in net profits over the past six months (66%), but only by a very small margin over the U.S. (64%).
• A much greater proportion of entrepreneurs in the Latin America / Caribbean region have increased their use of debt instruments over the past six months (42%), than those who have either decreased (25%) or maintained (28%) their debt load.

Here's an infographic visually displaying some of this information:

For other recent news of note from philanthropist Daniel Chavez Moran, read here.  

Daniel Chavez Moran: The Path to Mexico’s Future

Mr. Daniel Chavez Moran, founder of Grupo Vidanta

Philanthropist Daniel Chavez Moran, credited with the modernization of the tourism industry in Mexico in the 1990s, remains focused on finding the path to the future for his home country and all of Latin America through the scholarly work of the nonprofit Vidanta Foundation which he founded in 2005.


The Foundation recently sponsored an international seminar, “The Bicentennial Opportunity,” in Mexico City in conjunction with the Carolina Foundation of Spain, the Democracia y Desarrollo Foundation of Chile, the Center for Research and Teaching of Economics (CIDE) and the magazine Nexos.


Among the seven books presented that evaluated the history of Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico during the last century, and analyzed the dilemmas and opportunities of the current times, were these two titles on Mexico’s future:


México 2010. El Juicio del Siglo, 2010


Edited by María Amparo Casar and Guadalupe González and published by Taurus, the book brings together six prominent Mexican researchers who analyze the path followed by Mexico between 1910 and 2010. The authors offer essays on: politics, economy, society, international relations, justice and security, and the thought and culture in Mexico. They are: Maria Amparo Casar, Francisco Suarez Davila, Federico Reyes Heroles, José Ramón Cossio, Guadalupe Gonzalez and Hector Aguilar Camin, respectively.


México 2010. Hipotecando el Futuro, Ciudad de México, 2010

Edited by Erika Ruiz Sandoval and published by Taurus, the book contains eights essays writen by: Nicolas Alvarado, Gerardo Esquivel, Silva E. Giorguli Saucedo, Fausto Hernández Trillo, Alejandro Moreno, Erika Ruiz Sandoval, Pedro Salazar Ugarte, Jesus Silva-Herzog Márquez. From a discerning eye, disenchanted and lucid, they present a series of reflections on the path that Mexico could take in the spheres of politics, economics, international relations and culture.

For more information on Daniel Chavez Moran and the publications of the Vidanta Foundation,  read here.  

Chavez Moran: Partnering for Progress

As a retired businessman and now philanthropist, Daniel Chavez Moran recognizes the power of partnerships in pursuing growth strategies. That is why the Vidanta Foundation, founded by Chavez Moran in 2005, works with internationally recognized institutions from all across the Americas to promote the study of intra-Latin American relations, the integration of Latin America with the rest of the world, and the strengthening of democracy and economic opportunity. Affiliated institutions include:

• Centro de Investigaciones y de Docencia Económicas (CIDE)
• Foreign Affairs Latino America
• Fundación Carolina
• Fundación Democracia y Desarrollo
• Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE)
• Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM)
• Inter-American Dialogue
• Organización de los Estados Americanos (OEA)
• Real Instituto Elcano
• Secretaria General Iberoamericana (SEGIB
• The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University (SAIS)
• The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
• Universidad Externado de Colombia
• Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
• University of Southern California
• Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Among these, the Organization of American States is the world’s oldest regional organization dating back to the First International Conference of American States, held in Washington, D.C., from October 1889 to April 1890.  The OAS brings together all 35 independent states of the Americas in order to achieve among its member states “an order of peace and justice, to promote their solidarity, to strengthen their collaboration, and to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and their independence.”   

For more information on the work of Daniel Chavez Moran, read here.  

Daniel Chavez Moran Announces Vidanta Foundation Prize Entries

Daniel Chavez Moran announces more than 200 nominations were submitted for the transformative 2011 Vidanta Foundation Prize for "Contributions to the Reduction of Poverty and Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean" by the deadline of May 21, 2011. Entries were received from the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, United States, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The annual Vidanta Foundation Prize is a joint initiative by the Organization of American States (OAS), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) and the Vidanta Foundation, the nonprofit organization founded by philanthropist Daniel Jesus Chavez Moran. Its aim is to provide recognition and support for outstanding projects carried out in Latin America and the Caribbean to reduce poverty and inequality, and fight discrimination.

The recipients of the first, second and third place Vidanta Prize will be selected by a jury, meeting on August 26th in Cancun, Mexico, to announce its decision. The jury will be comprised of Mrs. Billie Miller (Barbados), Carmelo Angulo (Spain), Luis Maira (Chile), Julio Maria Sanguinetti (Uruguay) and Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico).

The first place winner of the 2010 Prize, Fundación Mundo Mujer, is a nonprofit organization that aims to improve the quality of life of poor working women and their families, through easy and timely access to credit and other services.

Read more about philanthropist and retired businessman Daniel Chavez Moran and the 2011 Vidanta Foundation Prize here.

Chavez Moran: Book News of Note

Daniel Chavez Moran recommends this enlightening online video presentation by The Cato Institute, a public policy research organization in Washington, D.C., featuring Francis Fukuyama, editor of “Falling Behind: Explaining the Development Gap Between Latin America and the United States,” a publication supported by the Vidanta Foundation.

From an introduction to the video of the book forum at The Cato Institute:

“During the past 400 years, the development gap between Latin America and British North America dramatically widened. Francis Fukuyama will discuss prominent theories for that divergence – including those that emphasize the roles of natural resources, culture, and geography – and explain how institutions and economic policies are the keys to understanding growth outcomes. At different times, several Latin American countries have narrowed the gap with the United States, and genuine institutional reform has occurred in the past several decades across the region.”

Francis Fukuyama is Professor of International Political Economy, School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Read more about Daniel Chavez Moran and the Vidanta Foundation’s projects and publications here.  

Daniel Chavez Moran: U.S.-Latin American Interwoven Relations

Daniel Chavez Moran, Mexican philanthropist and founder of the Vidanta Foundation, recommends this review of the book “Contemporary U.S. - Latin American Relations: Cooperation or Conflict in the 21 Century,” as  published in Foreign Affairs magazine, a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The book is part of a project supported by Daniel Chavez Moran and the Vidanta Foundation to analyze the interwoven relationship between the United States and Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Central America, the Caribbean, Cuba, Peru, Mexico, and Venezuela throughout the present decade. The project's coordinators were: Jorge I. Domínguez of Harvard University, and Rafael Fernández de Castro  of Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.

“As Latin America becomes more differentiated, with many countries surging ahead while some lag behind, and as the region’s governments veer off in a variety of ideological directions, it is becoming notoriously difficult to generalize about inter-American relations. It is more manageable to speak of U.S. relations country by country. So Domínguez and Fernández de Castro (now Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s national security adviser) have understandably served up a collection of separate – and in each case credible – essays on Argentina (Roberto Russell), Brazil (Monica Hirst), Chile (Claudia Fuentes Julio and Francisco Rojas Aravena), Colombia (Cynthia Arnson and Arlene Tickner), Peru (Cynthia McClintock and Fabián Vallas), and Venezuela (Carlos Romero and Javier Corrales). Cristina Eguizábal and Anthony Maingot ably handle Central America and the Caribbean, respectively. Dominguez’s overview establishes four themes to provide coherence, with partial success: “balancing” against the United States, the rise of China, the breakdown of ideological consensus, and the securitization of U.S. policies. Notwithstanding its emphasis on the George W. Bush years, the volume marvelously responds to the prayers of college professors searching for concise and accessible accounts of contemporary bilateral policies in our hemisphere.”

Read more about Daniel Chavez Moran and the Foundation’s Contemporary Inter-American Relations project here.  

Chavez Moran on 100 Years of Lessons

Founded by philanthropist Daniel Chavez Moran, the Vidanta Foundation is a non-profit institution whose primary aim is the promotion of social sciences and culture to the benefit of all with a special interest in academia and policy-making. One of the organization’s primary objectives is to promote the field of Latin American studies, and the analysis of Latin American international relations and the strategies for a positive integration of the region in the global world of the XXI Century.

A recent project of the Foundation, the Bicentennial Project, was designed “to provide a critical evaluation of the trajectory followed by Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico over the last hundred years. Its aim is was to identify common aspects as well as the differences that have characterized the historical evolution of these countries from 1910 to 2010.”

The research focused on five key areas: politics, economy, society, international relations, and political thought and culture. The Vidanta Foundation funded over forty studies in association with renowned international universities and academic institutions including:

• Argentina: Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
• Chile: Fundación Democracia and Desarrollo
• Colombia: Universidad Externado
• México: Centro de Investigación and Docencia Económicas

The seven books published as part of the project were presented at “The Bicentennial: Lessons and Opportunities, 1910-2010" international seminar in Mexico City.

Read more about Daniel Chavez Moran and the Bicentennial Project books here.