The GOA study, which is based on statistics from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said some of the countries where commercial printing should do well in 2013, include Panama, Chile, Columbia, Mexico, Peru, Mexico and Brazil.

In an interview with PrintWeek, GOA chief executive George Ryan said: "There’s definitely an upside to the whole region. If you visit Latin America, you see construction and new building going up in a lot of countries.

"They didn't suffer the downside that the US and other markets had because they didn’t have a housing bubble. The other thing is the literacy rate is on the rise in countries like Brazil and as a result there’s an increased need for printed materials."

Also helping overall printing growth in the region has been a surge in ad spending throughout the region. The study noted, "Brazil and Argentina are among the ten nations that will experience significant growth in advertising spending between 2011 and 2014".

It went on to forecast that Brazil will replace the UK as the fifth largest advertising spending country in 2013, after the US, Japan, China and Germany.

The study singled out the potential for a surge in the packaging segment, citing recent reports noting that 79% of packaging printers reported growth in their flexible packaging converter business, 72% of label converters reported and year-over-year increase in sales, while 74% of printers in the folding carton business cited sales growth of more than 6%.

"The growth in the packing segment is producing changes in the structure of the industry in the entire region," the GOA survey concluded. "There has been increase in mergers and acquisitions of packaging converters with high volumes. In the last two years, The Mayr-Melnhof Packaging Consortium, the market leader in folding cartons in Europe, acquired the packaging converting operations of Marinetti Packaging in Chile, and the Graficas de los Andes and Plegacol in Colombia."

Though the GOA study did not look at the transition from analog to digital among commercial printers in the region, Ryan noted the region as a whole is behind the US in the move to digital presses - in part because there’s less of a market for variable data based direct mail. "Some of that is because they have a less reliable mail system in some of the countries, which makes digital print less appealing," he said.

The health of the economies in the region is not only driving local commercial printers to expand their business, it’s also attracting major international players to come into the countries like Mexico, Ryan said, adding: "You’re already seeing companies like R.R. Donnelley and Quad/Graphics acquiring printers in the region."

The GOA has been around for 38 years helping to grow the commercial printing industry in the Caribbean, Central America and South America. Its next annual event will be February 21-23, 2013 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.