Stewart McAndie: Good morning and good afternoon. I'm Stewart McAndie, a member of the Ashmore UK Client Team. Welcome to everyone and thank you for joining today's Ashmore webinar, “LatAm reform revival: from tactical play to structural opportunity." 

Today we are joined by Felipe Gomez, MD and Portfolio Manager based in Ashmore's Colombia office, covering Latin America, Rodrigo Blancas, Head of Ashmore's Mexico office, and Ben Underhill, a Global Macro Analyst in Gustavo Medeiros's research team, who I will hand over to first to set the scene and ask the first questions. So, over to you, Ben.

Ben Underhill: Thank you, Stewart, and thank you Felipe and Rodrigo for joining this call today. And thank you everyone who's dialled in. Hopefully it will be insightful and it's definitely great to share views on LatAm with these experts. 

So, in our Outlook for 2025, which we published at the end of last year, we highlighted the scope for very strong returns in LatAm assets this year, given extremely attractive valuations, improving prospects for earnings growth and various catalysts ahead that could drive re-ratings across the region. This has been what has played out this year, with LatAm cross-asset performance very strong. Many of the top performing equity markets in the world this year have been LatAm based, with MSCI indices for Colombia up 102% year-to-date, Chile up 55%, Peru up 50%, and Mexico and Brazil also close to 50% gains. In each case, these rallies have been bolstered by FX appreciation against the dollar, which have been supported by the strong carry and elevated real rates on offer in these countries' local bond markets.

So, Felipe, turning to you first, could you give us your thoughts on the key drivers of the strength in South American asset performance this year and what are your expectations as we look into 2026?

Felipe Gomez: Thank you so much, Ben and thank you very much everyone who are connecting to this conference. I think you touched on a couple of things that have been key. The first one is definitely that people are trying to diversify away from the US, the story of the weak dollar, etc. And flows are following that. But also, you also mentioned about valuation. LatAm was trading below 10 times price/earnings and dividends were higher than 5%. So, market started to pay attention to that, and I think it has also played a very important part of this LatAm recovery. Local flows have also been strong, not only because locals started doing good and buying their own equities, but also because there were some pension reforms that people anticipate will bring more volume flows to the region. 

Also, in terms of tariffs, at the beginning of the year, people were quite concerned about what President Donald Trump was going to do regarding tariffs. We started seeing more clarity and more visibility and LatAm ended up well positioned in these tariffs talks  with Trump. I think the market is also praising that. There are also expectations for lower rates and expectation for a change in the political scenario in the region. 

You know, after what happened with Argentina’s President Milei, after what is going on with Chile and Kast, people are confident that the region is moving to the right and new presidents are putting the right policies to bring back investment. And I think this is important. 

And finally, commodities. I mean, people pay a lot of attention to the commodity prices and copper has been a star, but if you go deep into the companies, all the companies producing commodities in LatAm, most of them have very sound plans to grow production. You have seen great production growth in Petronas in Brazil and the plans for Tia Maria Southern Copper in Peru. So, if you add up all the commodity plays, you will find good expectation of commodity growth production in the region. And I think everything has played well. 

In terms of the outlook, I think there are still very good entry levels for LatAm, there are still very great opportunities to continue diversifying away from US. LatAm is trading at half of the multiple of US, and we have three times the dividend yield of US. So, I think it's also important, but you need to be selective now. There are many companies in LatAm that are stars and are not in the index. For example, the biggest company in Latin America is Mercado Libre. Mercado Libre has over USD 100bn of market cap and is not in the index. So, there are many plays to play LatAm that are not in the index. And being selective will be a very good opportunity to take advantage of all these plays that are coming.

Ben Underhill: Which should favour active managers in the region next year, which is, of course, a key part of our philosophy. And Rodrigo, we'll dig back into some of those themes that Felipe mentioned a little bit more deeply later on. But Rodrigo, turning to you now, let's talk about Mexico. So, 2025 began with investors very downbeat, particularly on Mexican equities due to risks from tariffs, but also rising risks to institutional credibility and strength in Mexico after the Morena Party won a super-majority in 2024 and set about making changes to the Mexican constitution. But one year on, investor sentiment around Mexican equities has shifted and we've seen a strong valuation-driven recovery throughout the year. So, what's behind the change in investor mood on Mexican stocks? 

Rodrigo Blanca: Yes, 2025 has been a very different year for Mexico. And all the rally that you just mentioned has been mainly driven by macro, different news. On one side I will mention that the year started with a lot of risk, mainly due to the different tariffs that Trump was probably going to implement. But then what happened, on Liberation Day, we found out that Mexico was one of the favourites. That everything, every product that was under the USMCA agreement would be safe regarding tariffs. So that's what started the initial rally for Mexico having a very or a big advantage in relative terms to the rest of the countries, not only in the emerging markets but also in general terms. 

So, the rally started in that way, and as you all know, the USMCA will be revised by the end of this year or the beginning of next year. So, all the messages that we've been hearing from the government, from the Economy Secretary, who is managing these negotiations and from the White House, everything goes towards a very positive end on these negotiations. So, the second part of the rally has come from that. 

It's very important to mention that everything in terms of foreign investment, for example, or big project investment, is still on hold until the full uncertainty on how the final negotiations on the USMCA agreement will actually turn out. But the market has been very positive on the current results or outcome or the potential ones going forward on the USMCA. 

Then on the second hand, I will mention, and this is definitely happening, Claudia Sheinbaum, the President, has been way keener to negotiate with the private sector. So that's something that has changed the full story on Mexico, with her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, there was no negotiation with the private sector, pretty much all. 

I mean, he wanted to manage everything from the government side. So having private investors in this, it has been a very good thing. And as we mentioned, Claudia Sheinbaum has learned how to manage Trump, and it has been very positive towards the real negotiations. I think we still have some challenges to face regarding security and drug trafficking and how to implement those within the USMCA agreement new clause. But yes, answering the question, the whole mood has changed based on more positive outcome on the trade agreement.

Ben Underhill: Yes. If I could just follow up, what about the domestic economy, because we've seen some cyclical weakness in the Mexican consumer this year. Investment has also dropped quite a lot in the country after we saw excitement around nearshoring really pick up a couple of years ago. Do you see a cyclical recovery in Mexico next year and what can drive this?

Rodrigo Blanca: The simple answer is yes, definitely. Actually, 2025 has been very low growth in economic terms, but we have the inflation barrier control both in core and non-core measures. So, I mean, growth has come in actually better than expected. At the beginning of the year, the Mexican economy was expected to grow 0% and we are now growing closer to 0.6%. So, it's still low, but it's way better than expected. For next year, our expectation is for Mexico to grow between 1.4 and 1.6%, which is better than we have at the moment. And it will come, as you mentioned, from the nearshoring effect. 

And everything is, again, based on a positive outcome from the USMCA, which is, the more probable scenario. Once we have all the negotiation finished and the deadline is July 1st, 2026. By then, if the outcome is positive, then we could probably even see numbers all the way to 2% in economic growth.

Ben Underhill: Fantastic. Felipe, I'm going to circle back to you now and dig a little bit deeper into LatAm politics and the repercussions for markets. So we've just seen a very strong showing from the right-wing candidate, Kast, in the Chilean election, which you mentioned, he is now widely expected to go on and win a runoff against socialist candidate Jara in December and just a month ago, again, as you mentioned, Argentinian voters gave a very strong mandate for the now Trump endorsed Javier Milei to continue with his radical economic reform package in Argentina for the next two years. 

Part of this reform package has included a huge fiscal tightening, which has brought the budget from a nearly 3% deficit in 2023 to nearly a 3% surplus in 2024. Many investors thought this would be impossible, but not only has Milei managed to do it, he's actually done it while gaining popularity. So, what are your takeaways, Felipe, from this surprisingly strong result for Milei in Argentina and also the likely move in Chile from a socialist government to a more right-wing economically liberal government?

Felipe Gomez: Yes.

 

Ben Underhill: How does it change how you're thinking about investing in these countries?

Felipe Gomez: I think voters and the private sector have realised that Latin American countries need to grow. And in order to grow, they need investment. So, they are voting for people who can create the confidence level to bring back investment. 

Argentina, for example, you were mentioning Milei. Argentina's investment over GDP is around 15%, is very low. And even though they have huge projects to move on in energy, gas with the Vaca Muerta Shale fields, etc., they need to bring more investment, and they are continually looking for more projects in metals and in mining. 

But the biggest part is, as you were mentioning, to fix the fiscal situation so they can have long-term funding. So, they can work with the imbalances that they have. They are doing it, they are bringing down inflation and as they continue bringing down inflation, they will be able to issue long-term bonds with issue long-term bonds. They will be able to, for example, grow the mortgages loan book in the banks. Right now, if you see the banks, the mortgage loan book is less than 4%. So, there's a big opportunity to grow in Argentina away from the commodity sector. But in order to do that, you need to bring confidence, and you need to show strong signals that the fiscal situation is going to be under control after all the expansions they have had in the past.

Ben Underhill: And segwaying into Colombia, which will also see an election next year, it's very much on the horizon now. We've seen widening fiscal deficits under Gustavo Petro, which have been perhaps the key talking point in Colombian macro this year and led to inflation rising over the past few months. How do you see the political landscape in Colombia right now, Felipe? What's the likelihood of Colombians backing a candidate next year, who brings fiscal consolidation as part of the mandate?

Felipe Gomez: Yes, it's very hard, but in the meantime, what polls are showing is that people didn't like the Petro experiment. You know, if you add up all the voters, all the voting intention from the centre, from the right, they're bigger than the voting intention from the centre-left and the left. So, there's a chance that the extreme left currently running the government is not going to continue in the next term. 

The biggest risk is polarisation. We are started seeing the centre to be diluted. We are started to see the candidate from the extreme left, Mr Cepeda and the candidate from the extreme right, Mr de la Espriella, taking advantage. They still don't have more than 20% of voting intentions, but they are probably the ones who are going to run. And if you get to a second round between Cepeda and de la Espriella, there's still a chance that Colombia will continue having an extreme leftish candidate. But I'm confident that voters and parties and the private sector will go together, and we'll find out a way to have someone in the centre that will be able to arrive with more than 60% voting in the second round and we'll be able to pursue the reforms agenda that we need. 

But in order to fix the fiscal situation, the best way to do it is not by doing a new tax reform and by cutting expenditure, the best way to do it is growing. So, the most important part is to have a president that brings confidence back. And with this confidence you can bring investment back. We were talking about Argentina with 15% over GDP has invested in the country. Colombia is not higher than that, in Colombia is 17%. And we were 25%, 10 years, 15 years ago. So, we need a president who brings back confidence to pull the project that we have in the agriculture and commodities and infrastructure, because growing is the only way to fix for good, the fiscal issue.

Ben Underhill: And increase foreign investor participation in Colombia again. Rodrigo, let's go back to Mexico now and talk about reforms a little bit more closely. So, as you mentioned, Sheinbaum has brought a much savvier, market-friendly approach to her administration so far than many investors expected. She's managed President Trump very well, but she has already implemented some important, certain important reforms within Mexico, including reforms around Pemex's debt management. How important have Pemex reforms been for stabilising sentiment in Mexico?

 

Rodrigo Blanca: Yes, well, it's important to just to mention that the Pemex debt management hasn't been signed as a reform yet. It will be probably included in the energy reform that is still pending and hopefully will happen at some point, the beginning of next year. But yes, the message around Pemex, making Pemex self-sustained in terms of finance, it's a very good message that has helped international investors invest in the new programme of Pemex debt. And that has also improved the rhetoric and the message that Claudia is sending to the private investors in general. 

I wouldn't say that Pemex by itself has been a big change for the Mexican market in general terms or in the equity side, but it has definitely improved the way we see Sheinbaum and it's one of the callable actions that we can see and that foreign investors can see working. So yes, I would say that it's important and it has been important. Now the energy reform that will come, and we can touch on this later, but it will come hopefully during the first half of next year. And that would not only include how we can invest in Pemex and how Pemex will manage its own debt, but it will also include how the energy will be created and distributed here in Mexico. Because it's a very crucial and key pillar towards the nearshoring theme and how the new enterprises will actually work. So, yes, I mean it has been good, but we still have some place to go.

Ben Underhill: Yes, and what are the other areas for domestic reform that you see as being important catalysts for Mexican equities to continue their good performance for the next couple of years?

Rodrigo Blanca: I think that the energy reform will be probably the biggest of all. It will allow private companies to generate and distribute energy and that's one of the main catalysts for some of the big foreign investors to actually stabilise in Mexico. So that one will be huge. I will say that's probably the biggest of all. 

We also have the labour reform, which is probably not positive to some of the companies, the retail companies for example, because they're trying on one side to reduce the labour week from 48 hours a week to 40 hours a week. So that would probably increase labour costs to some of the labour-intensive businesses like Walmex, FEMSA for example. But on the other side, it's very good for employees in general. We're increasing rights for employees, we are increasing the minimum wage. So that helps on the social part and is one of the promises that Sheinbaum has been saying since the beginning. 

So, it can go both ways, but I think in general terms will be good for the country. And there's obviously another part of the labour reform that this one was approved in 2022, which increases the percentage of all the Mexican workers on the pension funds. That one has been big. And this will actually help a lot on the equity side and in the bond market as well, because therefore pension funds will grow in size by 2030. So, that will increase the way they invest, where they invest, and will give support to the international community to actually come and invest more in Mexico.

Ben Underhill: Fantastic. And it wouldn't be a conversation on LatAm without touching on Brazil. Of course, along with Mexico, the largest country in the LatAm equity market in terms of market cap and a key driver of regional returns. The story in Brazil this year, just very broadly, has been again one of valuation-driven recovery in the equity market and one of strong performance in the FX market due to high real rates and strong carry and also very good performance in local currency, sovereign bond markets. Because we've had that perfect combination of FX appreciation, strong carry, and then also price appreciation due to falling interest rates, particularly in the belly of the curve. 

But really, in my view anyway, Felipe and Rodrigo, the key element behind the improving confidence in Brazil this year has been the very credible and actually very strict monetary policy management by the central bank. So, at the beginning of the year, there was a loss of investor confidence due to a tax reform proposed by Lula, which eventually was passed into law, which essentially is, I'm sure many of our listeners are familiar with, raised the minimum threshold for paying income tax significantly, exempting a significant proportion of the population from paying tax. But the fiscal news didn't get much worse from there. Throughout the year we haven't seen much improvement, but we didn't get the deterioration that many investors feared. But we did get macro stabilisation through monetary policy. 

So, next year, how do you see investors playing Brazil? We've got to a point where the central bank can start credibly cutting rates, likely at the beginning of next year, which should support growth to recover. We have seen a slowdown in growth as a result of restrictive monetary policy, but growth's actually been relatively robust during a period of  what are some of the highest real rates in the world. So, can we talk a little bit about that, and then could you also mention Brazilian politics because that's going to be perhaps the key talking point in LatAm, particularly in the second half of next year.

Felipe Gomez: Yes Ben, but you should also take into account the bottom-up perspective. You know, Brazil’s earnings-per-share growth between 2024 and 2026 is expected to be 20% per year and it's definitely bigger than any other countries. So, despite the higher interest rates, companies are delivering and when you have a market that trades $1bn a day just locally and you have 200 companies over there, you will find a lot of bottom-up opportunities. I know that the political situation is right in the spotlight and everybody's talking about politics, what you mentioned regarding the orthodoxy of the central bank has been very important. But the most important part is that companies are doing the homework and you're finding very healthy earnings growth all across the world.

Ben Underhill: And which sectors are driving the majority of that earnings growth? Is that something which is broad-based or are key sectors really driving that?

Felipe Gomez: The financial sector is very important in Latin America. And of course, the financial sector has been a big driver in the region. The biggest company in Brazil, in the index is Nubank and it's basically a growth company and they have been showing 30% like kind of earnings-per-share growth and it's basically driving the index but also, you see this behaviour in other names and also in commodity names.

Ben Underhill: Yes. Okay. Fantastic. So, I think we're approaching one of my last questions now and then we'll open the floor for some Q&A. My last question is taking a step back and thinking about LatAm from a global asset allocators perspective. Obviously, Felipe, you run a LatAm focused equity fund, Rodrigo, you run a Mexico focused fund, but many of our audience, many of our listeners, might be global asset allocators, global investors. So, what is the relevance and the importance of LatAm as a diversifier in global funds, let's say equity funds just for the purpose of this conversation.

Rodrigo Blanca: Yes, Latin America, usually we see thing as an alpha play to the emerging markets pockets of the portfolio. And if you see the correlation between LatAm and the EM index is definitely high. But from the fundamental perspective, I think LatAm is more related to what happens in United States than to what happens in the rest of EM. You know, LatAm doesn't have a lot of things to do with India, with South Korea, but you have countries like Mexico, which are very much integrated with US and that are the second component of the index and that whatever happens to US is having an impact in Mexico. 

So, you have companies in Colombia, in Chile and Peru that are very much integrated to the US supply chain. So, if you try to figure out companies from the bottom-up perspective, you will find more relationship to US than to the rest of emerging markets. 

I think you should think about LatAm not only as an alpha play against emerging market, but also as a way to buy US risk factors cheaper. You know, we trade at half of the price/earnings, we trade with three times the dividend yield. We have a very diversified set of companies that are becoming multinationals within the subcontinent. So, I think it's a great way also to play an alpha tactical allocation against US. Commodities are also very important, but people usually think that LatAm is a way to play commodities, but if you figure out commodities is right now only 20% of the benchmark. And it's not only oil as it used to be 10 or 15 years ago, but you also have copper, you have lithium, you have iron ore, and you have pulp and paper. So, it's not a big chunk of a way to play oil and gas. So, it's a very diversified way to play commodities in this 20% that is in the benchmark.

Ben Underhill: Yes. Excellent. And I just would like to reference a piece that we put out earlier this year for anyone interested on LatAm equities, where we covered some of what Felipe has just been saying in some depth. It included what I think is one of the most compelling graphs I've seen really for Latin American equities, for the case of investing in Latin American equities, which shows a very, very strong skew in the likelihood that LatAm equities are going to outperform versus US equities and a very strong skew in the scope of outperformance versus the scope of downside in relative terms. And the key part of that is the much higher dividend yields which are on offer in Latin America versus the US. The US dividend yield is famously now very, very small, but LatAm dividend yields are on average 5%+. But in Colombia even higher. Right, Felipe?

Felipe Gomez: Yes. Right. In Colombia we could get to 7% next year.

Ben Underhill: Yes. Which provides the kind of downside protection that you just currently don't get in most developed equity markets. I think we've covered the majority of the points that I wanted to. Rodrigo, is there anything else you want to add on Mexico before we go to Q&A?

Rodrigo Blanca: Yes, just going back to valuation. The Mexican rally as we mentioned at the beginning of this call, has been very much driven by a multiple appreciation. The earnings rally, the ones very dependent on whatever happens on the USMCA, is still pending. We do believe that earnings can grow between 10 and 15% next year and that will definitely switch the top-down driven market that we have at the moment in Mexico to more of a bottom-up, very specific names. Clearly the ones rallying the most in our opinion will be the ones related to the nearshoring effect, which is pretty much the real estate sector with some of the second derivative effect, which is airports based on an increase in business trips and some of the consumer names, especially the ones targeting the low base of the salary pyramid. And that's the thesis we have for the Mexican equities market for the next year.

Ben Underhill: Okay, fantastic. So yes, seeing that valuation appreciation driven rally this year really broadening out into a more sustainable earnings driven bull market.

Rodrigo Blanca: Exactly. And we're still cheap, we're still very cheap in valuation compared to the average. We're now trading at 12.8 times PE, when the average for the last 10 years is around 14. So, there's still space on the multiple appreciation rally, but I think it will also come from a potential earnings growth that haven't been seen throughout this year.

Ben Underhill: Yes. And on the multiple appreciation subject, another element of emerging markets investing that we talk about is when foreign investors, particularly big global asset allocators, institutional asset allocators, begin to shift back allocations away from developed markets, perhaps back into EM, reducing their overweight to EM and filling up their underweights. So, reducing their overweights to DM and covering their underweights to EM. That flow of money can actually be very significant as a percentage of some of these EM stock markets perhaps, of course, still very relevant for Mexico and Brazil, but even more relevant for markets such as Colombia, Peru, and Chile. Felipe, has there been an element of that this year in Colombia where we have seen by far the largest rally?
 

Felipe Gomez: Yes, it is very different between the three countries and also if you add Argentina, which has been the underperformer this year, but there has been definitely a big alpha for people who has been in the other countries against Brazil or Mexico and it was a big alpha last year in Argentina because of the change of government. But the stories are different. 

In Colombia, you have had very idiosyncratic stories that have played well. It has not been a top-down story, it has been more a collection of idiosyncratic stories, whereas in Chile you had all the election trade and all the confidence returning to the country after the political shift currently going on. Peru has been an outperformer, but it has potential to be a better outperformer because companies are doing great, but given that pension funds suffer that withdrawal, the technical position became difficult. So, it is causing a lot of hangover, a little bit of oversupply in the market that should definitely come back. In Argentina you had all the hype with elections, and it has been underperforming this year, but the fundamentals continue to be good, so it's important also to consider Chile, Peru, Colombia and Argentina as part of the alpha generator going forward.

Ben Underhill: Fantastic. 100% agree. Okay, I think we should open the floor to Q&A. So back to you, Stewart.

Stewart McAndie: Great, thanks guys. There are a couple of questions. I think you did mention about the credible money management in Brazil, but there is a couple of questions on Brazil, about Brazilian FX or and current account deficits and from a global investor perspective, do we have any concerns with the Brazil BRL exposure over the next 12 to 24 months? 

Felipe Gomez: Yes, if you see the real exchange rate in Brazil, they are in the average of the last 20 years. So, it is not a country that is overvalued, undervalued. I think people need to continue having the support of the foreign investment to continue managing the deficit of the current account deficit. And people are expecting that the new president will bring confidence to continue financing this current account deficit. The concern would not be only a concern for Brazil. There are many other countries around the world with big current account deficits, and basically, they depend on the volatility of US Treasuries and how the inflation situation comes in US. You know, so if we want to continue financing the current account deficit in Brazil, we need to continue having confidence of the treasury market and the inflation in US. So, it would not be, I would say an idiosyncratic problem. It would be more of a systemic problem if there's a problem with the BRL.

Stewart McAndie: Thanks. There's also another question on Brazil. Historically the asker is saying there's been a lot of net equity issuance. How's that looking now?

Felipe Gomez: It has been cooler right now, we still have some ideas, but I think the trigger would be a lower interest rate. Where you have the Selic at 15%, it is hard to find the right price for issuance or moreover it is harder to find good projects that requires capital if you can invest in money market at 15%. The opposite thing is happening in Mexico. Maybe Rodrigo can comment, but in Mexico, we're having a spree of new issuance and it's something that we see happening in LatAm going forward as the monetary policy continues normalising.

 

Rodrigo Blanca: Yes, it has been, just to add, one of the biggest years in terms of new issuance in the equity market in Mexico. We actually had three of them in the last couple of months in the third quarter. So, it has been increasing, international investors are placing money within these either new initial public offerings (IPOs) or follow-ons. So, I would say we still have space to go, and it will all depend as I mentioned on the USMCA result, but it's coming back a bit, at least in Mexico.

Stewart McAndie: Thanks. It would be remiss not to mention AI in a webinar. LatAm has quite a few globally competitive tech companies and in an era where global markets are increasingly driven and focused on AI, do we see this being a potential drag on LatAm equity performance?

Felipe Gomez: Yes, I think that there are many companies in LatAm that are innovating and they are not in the index. Mercado Libre is definitely the biggest example of that. We have had examples in Argentina such as Globant that has been implementing technology, and I think we'll continue having more companies like that. But I think what will benefit Latin America going forward is not like creating the next Nvidia, but to implement all these new technologies into the legacy companies that we have. In 2000, you had the dotcom bubble, and the US was trading in a bubble. Then three years later LatAm will perform and everyone had a webpage in every single company in LatAm. So, something similar, it's what we're expecting for LatAm for the next 10 years. We're not expecting probably to have the next Nvidia, but we're probably going to see a lot of gains in productivity, a lot of gains in margins in the region by implementing all these technologies that are already pricing high in US.

Rodrigo Blanca: And it's important to us that in Mexico, a big impact throughout the nearshoring theme is the new US plants or Mexican plants that are manufacturing all the chips and different parts of the AI world. So, for the case of Mexico, it's a second derivative effect but also an indirect way to invest in AI, because we're producing a lot of it. I mean, 10 years ago we were only manufacturing textiles and now we're also manufacturing part of the chips that most of the companies are using for AI. So yes, it's just a different way happening in Mexico and I think it's a positive one as well.

Ben Underhill: Yes, I'd also add that, while investors might not see LatAm as the most direct way to invest in AI, it is one of the biggest indirect beneficiaries of the AI capex build-out, particularly of data centres. I'm sure most of our listeners will be aware of the huge commitments to capex around AI, primarily from the US but also across Europe and China. And that's driving a lot of incremental demand for scarce metals, such as silver, Mexico's one of the biggest exporters of silver in the world, and also for copper. The amount of energy which is going to be needed to supply these data centres is going to need a lot more transmission lines. You're going to have to build a lot more energy generation capacity and that'll need a lot of copper. So, the fundamental case for copper is even stronger as a result of what we're seeing in the AI space and that is going to disproportionately benefit Chile primarily, but also other Andeans and LatAm generally as a region.

Stewart McAndie: Great. Thank you everyone. I'd certainly echo Ben's comments in terms of if you want to read more about the case for LatAm investing, please have a look on the insights section within the website. Ben, Felipe, Rodrigo, thanks very much for your time today and to all attending. Again, thank you for joining today's Ashmore webinar. If you have any other questions or would like any follow-up information, please contact your Ashmore representative. We'll be sending out a follow-up email with the webinar replay for your convenience. So, feel free to share that with any colleagues you think that will find it valuable. This concludes today's webinar. Thank you.