Once the darlings of emerging market investors, Latin America seems to be losing steam of late. Growth is expected to drop below 1% this year. Aside from a brief recession during the financial crisis, this year will be the continent’s slowest growth in more than a decade. Looking at Latin America’s growth as a whole would be a mistake though, because troubles in the region’s largest economies overshadow progress in smaller ones.

Three of the region’s largest economies —Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela—are becoming hotbeds of dissent.

In Brazil, protests against the administration of Dilma Rousseff have become commonplace, a result of her populist economic policies failing to revive growth in the country.

Argentines are dealing with a bizarre scandal involving their own president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In January, a top state prosecutor was apparently murdered before he could bring charges against the president for conspiring with Iran to cover up a terrorist attack against a Jewish center in Buenos Aires.

And in Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro is resorting to increasingly draconian measures to maintain control of the country.

Against that bizarre and macabre backdrop, which would have made excellent literary fodder for William Golding, George Orwell or even Edgar Allan Poe, more uplifting stories are rising out of the region.

Although plunging oil prices pinched Mexico’s economy a bit, activity in the country’s energy patch is picking up. After spending more than 76 years as a state monopoly,  the energy industry has finally been opened to more private investment. Last year the Mexican government realized that to overcome declining and inefficient production, private players would have to be allowed in the field.

Thanks to labor reforms, Mexico is also enjoying something of an industrial renaissance. Auto makers in particular are flocking to Mexico; Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) announced it will spend $2.5 billion to build and expand engine and transmission factories in the country, while Toyota Motor Corp (NYSE: TM) is spending $1 billion to build a new factory in central Mexico.

The country’s key proximity to the North American market, cheap labor and tax-saving free-trade agreements have prompted a growing number of industrial and manufacturing concerns to relocate there, boosting the economy. So although a significant amount of drug-related violence still persists primarily in the country’s northern states, Mexico’s economy should grow between 3.3% and 4.3% this year.

Colombia, which is perhaps most famous for its long-running communist guerilla insurgency, has also experienced an economic revival of sorts. The nation is a major crude oil exporter, and its economy grew 4.6% last year, with 3.4% growth expected in 2015. Although oil exports are down, the weakening Colombian peso vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar is boosting demand for other exports from the country. That’s cushioning the blow of oil prices just when crude product is expected to grow now that the government is negotiating a truce with the guerillas.

This doesn’t mean we should all go rushing headlong into Latin America, and I certainly won’t be vacationing in Caracas any time soon. The political uncertainty in many parts of the region is why we don’t have many Latin America-specific investments in our Global Income Edge portfolios. Still, if your focus is quality, there are opportunities to be found.

WEEKLY INCOME TRIVIA QUESTION

Q: What was the largest real-estate transaction in history?

The answer will be provided in next week’s issue.

Last week’s question was: The shape of the letter “A” is credited to a Phoenician pictogram that was inspired by what animal?

The answer: A horned ox. Originally drawn sideways, the legs of the letter “A” actually depicted horns, and were the distinctive feature of the original pictogram. The symbol became the basis for the Phoenician letter “aleph” (which means “ox” in Phoenician) and spread throughout the trade routes of the Mediterranean. The letter was adopted into Greek as the letter “alpha,” and was rotated to its present orientation so that it would match the upright strokes used in all of the Greek letters.

Our favorite Swiss industrial stock ABB Ltd (NYSE:ABB) is near the top of most alphabetical lists – but there’s a lot more to it than just primary letters. They recently won a $100 million contract to provide direct transmission of ultra-high voltage electricity in China. This order will be recorded on their Q1 reporting. Current yield is a tidy 2.75%, which is bit less than we often cover, but fits nicely into the current mix of our portfolio.

Dividends like this are part of a class of stocks that we call the “safest in the world” – click here to read why they offer consistent income that you won’t find anywhere else.