New statistics on the manufacturing industry in Latin America

Industrial policy aims to promote the economic, sustainable and inclusive development of countries. For decision makers, the information is relevant and necessary. The disaggregation of the data at different levels, for example, companies or economic activities, allows industrial policy to be well defined and can be optimally applied.

Disaggregated data underpins policy making and analysis

Disaggregated information is key to exploring business or sectoral dynamics, which is relevant for the study of innovation, productivity, business demography, or employment by gender, and which constitute fundamental issues in industrial policy.

In this sense, the regional intermediate indicators by economic activity allow for a disaggregated analysis of the problems at the business or sectoral level. This enriches both the economic analysis and the set of information from which industrial policy is defined and executed.

BADECON and Economic Indicators for Latin America

The Statistics Division of ECLAC, with the support of the national statistics offices, has been preparing an Economic Survey Database (BADECON), with the aim of compiling basic annual statistics for the calculation of regional intermediate indicators by economic activity. which are disseminated through CEPALSTAT, the ECLAC data portal.

Currently, BADECON contains information on added value, employment, electricity consumption, hours worked, among others, for the manufacturing industry of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. Together, this group of countries represents more than 70% of the added value of manufacturing in the region.

Participation structure of Intermediate Consumption and Added Value over Gross Production Value, around 2020 (percentages)

Source: ECLAC, CEPALSTAT Database and statistical publications of ECLAC, based on BADECON.

In accordance with the analysis made on the available information, the following indicators are made available to users, which are found in CEPALSTAT:

1. Macroeconomic aggregates by country,
2. Gross Production Value by economic activity,
3. Intermediate Consumption by economic activity,
4. Value Added by economic activity,
5. Number of employed by economic activity,
6. Number of employed by sex by economic activity,
7. Hours worked by economic activity,
8. Total remunerations by country,
9. Remunerations for economic activity,
10. Number of establishments by economic activity,
11. Electricity consumption by economic activity.

It is expected to be able to include new economic activities in BADECON such as services, agriculture, etc. This will serve as support for decision makers and can help strengthen the analysis for the formulation and application of policies. Users are invited to explore the available indicators and statistics here.