Eight UN organizations stress critical role of international transport and integrated supply chains for COVID-19 recovery and the SDGs…
This RDTII Guide, now in its second edition, serves as a handbook designed to assist policymakers and policy researchers in analysing digital trade regulations. The Guide complements RDTII version 2.0, a common framework developed in collaboration with the European University Institute and utilized by ESCAP, ECA and ECLAC for digital trade regulatory analysis. Users of this guide are recommended to use it in conjunction with the ESCAP-ECA-ECLAC Digital Trade Regulatory Review for Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, 2023 and 2024 versions. The guide provides essential explana…
What: Twenty-ninth (29) session of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee. When: 14 October 2022 (Opening ceremony at 9 am). Where: The Royal Torarica Hotel, Kleine Waterstraat 10, Paramaribo, Suriname. Background Information Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) Member Countries and Associate Members will convene for the 29th Session. Pursuant to resolution 358(XVI) of 1975, the CDCC was created as a permanent subsidiary body of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), to promote development cooperation among Caribbean countrie…
This paper analyzes the determinants of arabica green coffee prices in Latin American countries using a time series analysis and panel data methods. For this purpose, we construct a panel of different coffee prices: Coffee Organization (ICO) composite prices for Brazilian Naturals, Colombian Milds, and Other Milds; prices paid by the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FNC) to coffee growers; and farm gate prices by country. The results show that the Brazilian Real to USD real exchange rate, inflation, and rain in January affect prices positively. In contrast, green coffee inventorie…
“There is no question that the Caribbean is shouldering an unsustainable debt burden which compromises the capacity of the economies for sustained growth and restricts the options available to governments to introduce important social and welfare programmes” the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, said via video conference in opening the 17th meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) on 26 June, during which Ministers and high-level Government representatives from the…
The Caribbean receives higher amounts of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) when compared to other developing economies, according to a newly published report from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Entitled “Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean”, the flagship report was launched by ECLAC Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, on 27 May at the organization’s headquarters in Santiago, Chile. This year, the annual report places increased emphasis on the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) for the Caribbean. FDI inflows into the Carib…
Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Kitts and Nevis are set to benefit from technical assistance provided by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) subregional headquarters for the Caribbean in 2015. ECLAC will assist the government of Antigua and Barbuda in the development of a national trade policy, in addition to providing technical support through two undertakings. The first will be a functional review of the Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Industry. The second will be a review of the country’s National Consumer Protection Mechanisms. The latter activity will …
The paper analyses the main features of trade agreements covering services concluded between Latin American countries and developed country partners. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is devoted a full section with a view to setting out key analytical parameters for the ensuing approach to individual agreements with the United States, the European Union and Japan. By means of a very detailed comparison across agreements, a typology is established for classifying specific elements with relation to whether they simply mirror GATS provisions (GATS-neutral ), go beyond GATS pr…
The recovery of the economies of MERCOSUR, and the disturbances that the recent crises generated in the region have motivated reconsideration of the medium term prospects of the integration project. This paper tries to contribute to this activity with a brief analysis of regional macroeconomic interactions, and a discussion in broad terms of incentives and restrictions for macroeconomic cooperation in the specific conditions of the region. The themes that play through the discussion are that (i) the lack of a shared concrete perspective about the role of MERCOSUR for the growth of the nationa…
Introduction The study of trade and integration (LC/CAR/G.681) between the Netherlands Antilles and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was undertaken to assess the nature and extent of trade between the two groups of countries as well as the institutional framework for facilitating such trade. In addition, the study considered integration options for increasing trade, in particular Netherlands Antilles exports to CARICOM. Assessment of the export structures of the two groups revealed similarity in goods and services produced but a more diversified export structure in the case of CARICOM. Th…
This publication is a result of a Regional Consultative Meeting on Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean held at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile, 19-21 January 2000. The partners in the organization of this meeting were ECLAC, the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). Fifty-four participants, representing governments from the region at the senior policy-m…
International experience shows that costfree replication and adoption of industrial best practices on a universal basis is a misconception. Rather, it is a matter of a progressive and reciprocal adaptation between external and local practices in which learning costs and times, as well as the need for public and private cooperation, are essential. The potential for convergence of policies, practices and institutions triggered by globalization appears to be greater at the macroeconomic than at the microeconomic level. This article examines such issues in a general way and then focuses on the di…
President Cardoso delivered this address at the First Regional Conference in Follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development, held in Sao Paulo from 6 to 9 April 1997. On that occasion President Cardoso reviewed the issues examined at the World Summit, with special emphasis on poverty and the search for an environmentally sound, democratic form of development that will lead to a greater degree of social equity. Within this context, he discussed the relationship between economic and social factors, devoting particular attention to State reform, education, competitiveness and job creation. …
There is growing consensus that although a solid, balanced macroeconomic base is a necessary condition for development, it is not of itself enough to ensure that development is actually achieved or that its fruits will be enjoyed by the population as a whole. In a series of documents, ECLAC has been defining a coherent agenda of public policy reforms designed to ensure a change in production patterns accompanied by greater social equity. This article seeks to present a summary of this proposal, leaving aside for this reason the underlying diagnosis of the regional situation and the general fra…
The renewed interest sparked by the potential for intraregional cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean today has been reflected in numerous agreements regarding trade preferences and in attempts to establish free trade areas, customs unions or common markets. The possibility has even been discussed of setting up free trade arrangements on a hemispheric scale. This plethora of proposals inevitably raises a great many questions. What is the reason for this renewed interest? Are the differences between the schemes of today and those of the 1960s and 1970s significant enough to avert the o…
This paper discusses the concept of transnational innovation systems (TNIS) and presents some experiences in Europe in the formation of TNIS. The real cases show that supporting the emergence of Transnational Innovation Systems has clear benefits for the countries and the regions involved which may be related to the enlargement of consumer, labour and factor markets, enhanced competition, extended division of labour and increased specialization (Lundquist and Trippl, 2011: 3). Regional integration across borders can therefore be of high importance for small and emerging economies, where resour…
This article analyses changes in the structure and competitiveness ofthe Brazilian capital goods industry since the early 1990s and proposes aclassification within that industry based on the different industrial segmentsfrom which the demand for machinery and equipment derives. Althoughthis industry still accounts for a large share of manufacturing sector valueadded, the production efficiency and international competitiveness of thesegments it comprises are quite heterogeneous. The article singles out thesegments with the greatest development potential and suggests measuresthat could be taken …
Commercial bioprospecting activities in Latin America and the Caribbean assume various different forms and approaches in accordance with the target markets, the country context and business models involved. While prospecting for medicinally or industrially valuable substances derived from natural resources is not necessarily a new phenomenon, the systematic search for biologically active compounds in nature has gained a new significance as a component of biodiversity conservation strategies. Furthermore, the increasing availability of new scientific and technological tools have enabled new lev…
For most developing countries, open regionalism has emerged as quite a sensible response to the undergoing turbulent and asymmetric process of economic globalization. Moreover, the successful experience of the countries which are now part of the European Union, has made regional integration an increasingly attractive option for the developing world. Whenever regional integration is intended to go beyond merely a free trade agreement, macroeconomic coordination becomes a key issue. Theoretically, the underlying idea of the macroeconomic coordination is the interdependency between econo…
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…