Natural resources and economic growth

Some striking economic facts on China, India and Latin America from NextBillion.net:

In 1980 the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) economy was twice as large as that in China and India. By 2004, LAC was 20% smaller than China and India. The fast economic growth of these two countries was accompanied by a speedier integration in world markets, while LAC stayed behind. Today, China’s and India’s combined share of world exports is 50% larger than LAC’s share, while in 1990 the opposite was true.

What's striking is that this reversal took place in the context of Latin America being rich in natural resources, and China and particularly India being resource-poor - a stark macro-level illustration that resource wealth all too often does not translate into economic prosperity.