The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) presented to the Heads of State and Government of Ibero-America a document that identifies fifteen opportunities that have great potential to promote growth, create employment and improve well-being in the region, through public policies, investments, public-private alliances and international cooperation.
The document Ibero-America: space of opportunities for growth, collaboration and sustainable development is a contribution of the United Nations Regional Commission to the debates of the XXVIII Ibero-American Summitwhich culminates today in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and in which the Executive Secretary of ECLAC, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, actively participates.
The publication, which is part of the efforts to deepen relations between ECLAC and the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), reviews the economic relations of trade and investment in the Ibero-American space and reviews the main challenges facing Ibero-America.
“In this framework of tensions and challenges, ECLAC wants to contribute to the dialogue not only a diagnosis of gaps and trends, but also the definition of areas of opportunity with great potential to promote growth, create employment and improve well-being,” said the Executive Secretary of the Commission, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
According to figures from ECLAC, the Ibero-American region occupies 15.3% of the surface and has 8.7% of the world’s population. In 2021, the participation of Ibero-American GDP in world GDP was 8.6%. By 2023, it is projected that the countries of Ibero-America, with the exception of Paraguay, will have a lower growth than that registered in 2022. Only five countries of the 22 in the bloc will have economic growth rates greater than 3%.
Given the far-reaching challenges facing the region, the fifteen opportunities identified for growth, collaboration and sustainable development proposed by ECLAC are: the reconfiguration of global supply chains, the energy transition and renewable energy, industry green hydrogen, lithium in the energy transition, electromobility, circular economy, bioeconomy, pharmaceutical industry, medical device industry, digital transformation, export of modern services, advanced manufacturing, sustainable water management , the care society and sustainable tourism.
“It is essential that countries take full advantage of the opportunities identified to recover investment and growth. To this end, development patterns must be redirected towards more knowledge-intensive sectors, with higher growth rates in demand and employment, and that favor the diversification of exports”, states the publication.
In the document, ECLAC also underlines the proactive and dynamic role that States and public policies must play in the articulation of proposals and in the formulation and implementation of policies both in their sectoral and general dimensions.
Likewise, it calls for the creation —or revitalization— of strategic alliances and collaboration in the Ibero-American space on a full scale, and highlights that the sectors and areas identified as opportunities can also become vectors to strengthen regional integration and multilateralism. .
“Ibero-America has a great opportunity to actively participate in the design of the new international governance and defend its interests and aspirations in a framework of renewed international cooperation,” stressed the Executive Secretary of ECLAC.
For this, he added, it is essential to substantially strengthen the processes and institutional framework of regional integration and reach shared visions on specific issues.
“Crises must be opportunities for learning. For this reason, the analyzes and proposals in this document call for action and international cooperation to overcome limitations, take advantage of opportunities and create spaces of hope. That is the spirit in which ECLAC makes this document available to the Ibero-American countries”, concluded José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
Within the framework of his participation in the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit, the highest representative of ECLAC participated, on Saturday, March 25, in the XXXIII Meeting of presidents of Ibero-American business organizations OIE-CEIB in which he made a presentation entitled “Opportunities for transformation productivity, competitiveness and employment in the region”.
During his speech, he highlighted the urgency of promoting productive development policies in Latin America and the Caribbean and stressed the need for countries to scale up to these policies with a productivist and structuralist vision, and with modern approaches.
“If before the pandemic this was important, now it is urgent and imperative,” he emphasized.
Previously, on Thursday 23, the Executive Secretary of ECLAC participated in the Working Meeting of Consultative Observers of the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit, in which he expressed his intention to deepen relations with the Ibero-American General Secretariat and to continue putting the intellectual production of the organization available to the Ibero-American community.
That same day, within the framework of the XIV Business Meeting of the Ibero-American Summit 2023, participated in the presentation of the report “Latin American Economic Outlook” (LEO), prepared jointly by ECLAC, the Development Center of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), CAF-Development Bank of Latin America and the European Commission. On the occasion, he remarked that the green transition and productive development policies are essential elements for the urgent and necessary change in the region’s development model.
The activities of the highest representative of ECLAC at the Ibero-American Summit included a series of bilateral meetings with authorities such as Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen, Deputy Secretary General of the OECD; Andrés Allamand, Ibero-American Secretary General; Pável Isa Contreras, Minister of Economy, Planning and Development of the Dominican Republic; Antón Leis Garcia, Director of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and Alfonso Gómez Palacio, CEO of Telefónica Hispanoamérica, among others.
