UPDATE 1-Latam economies resilient in crisis-Argentina c'bank

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By Sven Egenter

CAPE TOWN, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Emerging markets in Latin America are likely to weather the global credit crisis due to their improved macro-economic policies, Argentina's central bank governor Martin Redrado said on Sunday.

The sharp decline of the dollar was not a disorderly unwinding of global balances so far, though risks remained, Redrado said.

"This is the first time since the Mexican crisis in the '80s that emerging economies are watching this turbulences from the sidelines," Redrado told reporters on the side of a gathering of central bankers in Cape Town.

However, Latin America like other emerging countries would not go completely unscathed if there was a major slowdown in the United States.

"I don't think that the theory of decoupling is going to stand," Redrado said.

Improved macro economic fundamentals, high commodity prices and the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves were helping emerging countries to better withstand the crisis, he said.

"We are turbulence proof. We have buffers of liquidity which did not have before," he said.

The weakness of the dollar was not destabilising emerging markets so far despite lingering risks.

"We are looking for an orderly unwinding of the (global) imbalances," Redrado said. "We are not seeing an unorderly unwinding so far. But clearly the risks are around. In the balance of risks we can not rule out that possibility (of a disorderly unwinding)."

When asked about inflation and interest rate policies on a global level, Redrado said that central banks were dependent on new data.

"In each country and in each region we have to be very vigilant to the data. But clearly I can not say that at this point there is a clear signal coming out from the developed economies," he said. (Reporting by Sven Egenter, editing by Maureen Bavdek)