Innovation and internationalization of Latin American services

Innovation and internationalization in services are key drivers of structural transformation, productivity growth and overall economic performance in Latin America. The services sector accounts for two thirds of the region’s GDP and provides over 60% of its employment. These shares are higher than in other developing regions, but still lower than in countries with higher levels of per capita income. The spread of information and communication technologies in Latin America over the past three decades has vastly enhanced both the tradability of services and the sector’s propensity to innovate. L…

Broadband in Latin America: Beyond Connectivity

Based on a model of the broadband ecosystem developed by the authors in their 2010 book, Fast-tracking the digital revolution: Broadband for Latin America and the Caribbean, they now analyse the evolution of this technology in Latin America, assess the economic impacts of its diffusion, propose public policies for its expansion and debate the future of the ecosystem. The policy analyses and proposals presented in the book focus on national programmes to foster universal broadband access and the debate on Internet neutrality. The study of the current trends highlights the progress of cloud comp…

Legal and economic interfaces between antidumping and competition policy

Introduction The interaction between antidumping and antitrust is a polemic issue in every integration process for both legal and economic reasons. From a legal perspective, antidumping rules allow practices such as price undertakings and quantitative trade restrictions that are forbidden by competition law, and punish certain types of price differentiation that are justifiable under the antitrust rules. From an economic viewpoint, the two policies pursue different objectives that eventually may lead to conflicting situations. Antidumping is a trade remedy for industries injured by import comp…

Innovation and SME internationalization in Korea and Latin America and the Caribbean: Policy experiences and areas for cooperation

Economic relations between the Republic of Korea and Latin American and the Caribbean have expanded rapidly since 2000. Bilateral trade in goods increased more than fivefold, while the region has also become an important destination for Korean foreign direct investment. The region’s interest in Korea also stems from this country’s successful economic and social development experience, as it developed from being one of the poorest countries in the world to a high-income economy within less than six decades. To better understand the divergent trends in Korea and the region, this document reviews…

Best practices in defence of competition in Argentina and Brazil: useful aspects for Central America

Developing countries with a relatively long expertise in competition policy, such as Argentina and Brazil, may provide a very valuable point of reference for developing countries that have acquired more recently a competition legal and institutional framework. Among the recommendations that can be derived from Argentina and Brazil for other more recent comers to the competition institutional arena are: i) the importance of having a single and independent body in charge of applying the competition law; ii) the need for competition policy and the judiciary system to coordinate their acti…

Foro Regional Tripartito: CEPAL plantea las políticas de desarrollo productivo como parte de la solución para abordar la informalidad en la región

En el foro, la CEPAL destacó la importancia de escalar y mejorar las políticas de desarrollo productivo y propuso los clústeres como una estrategia clave para articular esfuerzos y enfrentar la informalidad en la región.…

Opportunities and challenges for MSMEs in Caribbean cross-border e-commerce

THE GOAL OF THE COURSE Training policymakers in good practices to improve thecapacities of MSMEs to participate in cross-border e-commerce. SPECIFIC GOALS To learn about recent developments and trends indomestic and cross-border e-commerce particularly sincethe beginning of the pandemic and to examine thebarriers and challenges that MSMEs face in this type ofinternational trade. To understand the process of digital transformation anddigital capacity-building of MSMEs for the effectiveimplementation of cross-border e-commerce processes,systems and tools, along with the support thatgovernments …

Tercera Reunión - Foro de los Países de América Latina y el Caribe sobre el Desarrollo Sostenible - 2019

Negotiating trade agreements for the 21st century

This paper was prepared as a stimulant to discussions at the workshop “Negotiating trade agreements for the 21st century: The case of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement”, organized jointly by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the University of Adelaide’s Institute for International Trade (IIT), with the generous financial support of the Australian Government’s Overseas Aid Program (AUSAid). The workshop, held at the ECLAC headquarters in Santiago from 26 to 28 March 2012, brought together experienced trade negotiators from Australia’s D…

Policies for competitiveness

The progress made by the countries of the region in their stabilization processes has led policy-makers and entrepreneurs to pay increasing attention to the competitiveness of production activities and the factors and policies that determine it. The stability attained has clearly revealed the levels of some real variables which were hard to quantify in conditions of extreme price variations. This greater transparency of the market conditions, together with the growing competition resulting from the processes of greater trade openness, has brought out the strengths and weaknesses of the region&…