High inflation in Argentina is “worrying” Toyota’s local unit but the company is optimistic that concerns over energy shortages will ease in the medium term, said the firm’s president.

Investors are concerned about inflation and energy shortages in Argentina, where the red-hot economy has grown 8 percent a year for five years straight after a 2001-02 economic crisis.

“For us, inflation is a worrying issue,” said Anibal Borderes, president of Toyota Argentina, the local affiliate of Toyota Motor Co. ”I think it could be a key factor for anyone looking to export,” he told the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit in Buenos Aires.

  “Energy supplies worry us too, but … there are plans in place to increase supplies and I expect they will begin to show results,” he said, referring to government energy initiatives.

Peruvian miner Buenaventura said 2008 will be a record-setting year for its main silver and gold mines.

Silver output at its Uchucchacua mine should increase to 12 million ounces in 2008 from 9.9 million ounces in 2007, said Buenaventura Chief Executive Roque Benavides.

He said gold output at its Orcopampa mine will rise to 300,000 ounces in 2008 from 267,935 ounces in 2007. 

“Both will have record productions this year,” said Benavides, speaking at the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit in Lima, Peru.

Ruben Iparraguirre, Chief Financial Officer at Banco Patagonia in Argentina, expressed his surprise over the U.S. government’s intervention to keep the credit crunch contained.

 During an interview for the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Iparraguirre said the degree of U.S. activism was unexpected.

“We are surprised that the United States, which pushes free markets so much, has intervened so much now, that it’s done what it’s doing to save debtors who took on extremely expensive and risky mortgages, to save banks who loaned to those debtors, and to save the packagers who took those mortgages and resold them and designed them as junior, junior, junior bonds”.

Jose Luis Machinea, head of the U.N. Latin American Economic Comission (ECLAC), is confident the US won’t suffer a profund economic crisis from the credit crunch. 

Recent measures taken by the U.S. Federal Reserve to ensure bank liquidity and lower interest rates show the government has learned from a previous comparable crisis, the Great Depression, Machinea says.

Machinea  is one of the speakers  at the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit.

“The enormous difference with the 30s, is that everybody knows what we have to do and what not to do. I agree with those people who say this crisis is structurally the deepest since the Great Depression. But what you have to keep in mind is the reaction from the monetary authorities, which have implemented the biggest monetary and fiscal policies in history”.