From The Guardian tt

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean’s (Eclac) annual report Latin America and the Caribbean in the World Economy 2016 shows that the foreign trade dynamics of the region are having their worst performance in eight decades.

This year, the value of the region’s exports will fall for a fourth straight year and contract five per cent due to reduced dynamism in global demand for its products and to the growing uncertainty. That said, this decline is substantially less steep than in 2015 (-15 per cent). Meanwhile, imports will fall 9.4 per cent, which is similar to the figure from 2015 (-10 per cent), the report states.

According to Eclac, the reduction in intraregional trade, estimated at -10 per cent, marks a much sharper fall than that of exports to the rest of the world, as seen in the previous three-year period, with an especially negative trade dynamic among South American economies.

The report stresses that the region’s participation in global exports of goods and services has stagnated at around six per cent in the last 15 years, and has lost ground in the case of high-tech goods and business, financial and telecommunications services when compared with developing Asia, and China in particular.

In this report, for the first time Eclac presents projections for regional foreign trade in the 2017-2020 period, which point to a modest recovery: their value will grow at an average annual rate of around three per cent both for exports (2.9 per cent) and imports (3.1 per cent).

In highlighting the importance of a proactive response by the region to the tensions associated with globalisation and to growing uncertainty in the global economic scenario, Eclac executive secretary Alicia Bárcena said: “We must diversify the productive structure of Latin America and the Caribbean to drive economic recovery. We must continue betting on diversification, on value chains, on production chains as the foundation and on intraregional integration, which are more necessary than ever.”

The Latin America and the Caribbean in the World Economy 2016 report also analyzes the potential effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the approval of which is increasingly uncertain. If it comes about, the market covered by this mega agreement would represent 38 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 24 per cent of global trade in goods.

For more on this story go to: http://www.guardian.co.tt/business/2016-12-03/region%E2%80%99s-exports-fall-five-cent

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