The 2019 edition of the Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean consists of three parts. Part I outlines the region’s economic performance in 2018 and analyses trends in the early months of 2019, as well as the outlook for the rest of the year. It examines the external and domestic factors that have influenced the region’s economic performance, analyses the characteristics of economic growth, prices and the labour market. It also draws attention to some of the macroeconomic policy challenges, given that there is less space to implement such policies against a backdrop of continuing low economic growth, a high degree of uncertainty and an increasingly complex international scenario.