Any attempt to generalize when referring to Latin America is extremely hazardous, since economic causes, effects and trends vary from country to country and there is always some exception to the rule. This is understandable with an area covering a land surface more than four times the size of Europe and containing no less than twenty countries, one of which, Brazil, is larger than the United States. I think this brings me to the first fundamental point regarding Latin America: it cannot be regarded as a single unit. Each of the twenty countries, for the purpose of any effective study, must be regarded as an individual entity. Failure to appreciate this has been the cause of a great many mistakes on the part of British exporters in the past, and even today.