BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CMC) — A new report by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) says Latin America and the Caribbean need a “quality leap” from declining export competitiveness.
On Wednesday, the IDB said in the first quarter of 2018, the value of exports from Latin America and the Caribbean grew at a year-on-year rate of 9.7 per cent in comparison with the same period in 2017.
But the IDB said this growth has come amid signs that the region is becoming less competitive amid rising economic risks and global trade tensions.
The growth in exports was driven by increases in the prices of commodities, such as oil and copper, the IDB said.
In contrast, it said the volume of exports slowed to 3.1 per cent during the same period, “which speaks to the region’s loss of market share due to declining competitiveness and the lack of high-quality exports from many countries in the region”.
The Quality Leap: Export Sophistication As a Driver for Growth, a new report in the IDB’s Trade and Integration Monitor series, launched in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Wednesday, maps the sophistication of the region’s export supply and the main challenges it faces in securing a firmer position in the more profitable sectors of global trade.
Independently of factors, such as the economic difficulties experienced by several countries and dampened external demand, the report says that the competitive lag determined by low productivity and high trade costs affected the export performance of the region.
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