Latin America Records More Economic Growth : Commerce: While inflation is kept at manageable levels, U.N. agency says region must seek stability.

SANTIAGO, Chile —  Latin America in 1993 enjoyed moderate economic growth for the third straight year, and most countries in the region kept inflation at manageable levels, a U.N. agency reported here Friday.

But governments face problems in balancing their needs for faster growth and demands on them to maintain monetary stability, the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean said in its year-end report.

The average economic growth rate for the region this year is 3.2%, the report estimated. That is slightly more than 1992’s 3%, less than the 3.8% of 1991 but substantially better than annual rates of less than 1% in 1988 through 1990.

“Given the recessionary trends in the main industrialized economies, we could say that it is no small feat,” said economist Gert Rosenthal, the commission’s executive secretary.

But Rosenthal noted that the economic performance of Brazil, with a population of 160 million and the region’s largest economy, sharply tilts regional figures. For example, excluding Brazil’s growth of 4.5% in 1993 would reduce the regional rate from 3.2% to 2.6%.

In 1992, when Brazil’s economy shrank by nearly 1%, it was the other way around. Without Brazil, the rest of the region grew that year by 4.9%. So this year, outside of Brazil, “there was a clear slowdown,” Rosenthal said Friday.

At the same time, he said, inflation decreased in most countries, with the notable exception of Brazil. Brazil’s galloping inflation of 2,244%--nearly double last year’s rate--pushed overall regional inflation from 417% in 1992 to an estimated 797% this year.

No other country had an inflation rate of more than 60% for the year, and for the first time in many years the majority of the countries had rates of less than 15%.

Another positive point was a continued flood of foreign capital into Latin America, where interest rates are considerably more attractive than in industrialized countries. Confidence in the continuation of market-oriented economic policies encouraged foreign investment, Rosenthal said.

But he observed that economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean is barely keeping up with growth in the work force and leaves little margin for recovering economic and social ground lost during much of the 1980s, when recession plagued the region.

A major problem now is recession in other parts of the world. Depressed international prices for many products exported by Latin America and the Caribbean have made development more difficult for the region.

Latin American export volumes rose by nearly 9% in 1993, but revenues grew by only 4.5% to about $133 billion--not enough to outweigh burgeoning imports. The trade deficit is estimated at nearly $15 billion.