In a period when Guyana’s export value leapt by 89.5% compared to 24.3% for the comparable period last year, the remainder of much of the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean fared comparatively badly, according to a new study recently released by the Inter -American Development. (IDB)
While the study reportedly contained no figures for Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago this year, (the three Caribbean countries reportedly registered 28.4, 13.2 and 46.2 per cent, respectively, last year) it, nonetheless, reflected an overall pointed sluggishness in the value of goods exported from Latin America and the Caribbean to the United States.
The study reveals that the value of exported goods from Latin America and the Caribbean to the US grew at an estimated rate of 2.9 per cent, year-on-year, during the first quarter of 2023, having increased by 16.4 per cent in 2022.
The most recent issue of the IDB’s Trade Trends Estimates Report asserts that while the trade performance of Latin America and the Caribbean was better than the overall global average, nonetheless a significant slowing down of exports on account of lower commodity prices and weaker export volumes.
Going forward, the report points to the likelihood that “the balance of risks is moderately weighted to the downside due to the impact of tight monetary policies on global growth, uncertainty surrounding the war in Ukraine, the depletion of the expansionary effect of the reopening of the Chinese economy, and the reversal of the upward trend in commodity prices.”
“The post-COVID expansionary phase in the trade cycle has run its course, and Latin American and Caribbean exports have moved into a slowdown that is set to continue into the next quarter, before stabilizing in the second half of the year,” the IDB’s Principal Economist in its Integration and Trade Sector Paolo Giordano is quoted as saying. The IDB official further asserted that “policies and investments that seek to boost competitive insertion into foreign markets will be key to shoring up the region’s economic recovery.”
According to the report, the variation in export values among Caribbean countries revealed that Barbados had experienced a growth rate of 6.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2023 as against 3.4 per cent last year, Belize registered a minus 20.6 per cent in the first of the year, as compared with 10.8 per cent last year. The Report said that while the slowdown had affected the entire region the economies of South America were particularly hard-hit by the phenomenon. It said that in the instance of the South American economies the slowdown was “especially pronounced in the economies of South America, where the impact of falling prices was also greater due to the weight of commodities in their export baskets.”
