72-12-2019 Latin American Economy & Business Report

A new report reveals a worrying panorama for trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, with both imports and exports set to decline this year.

For the region as a whole, 2019 will see imports decline by 3% and exports fall by 2%, according to a new annual report from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac). This general trend is due to a “complex international context,” although the situation varies greatly across sub-regions. Entitled the ‘International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean 2019’ the report posits a number of explanations for the downturn in trade, chief among them the trade tensions between economic giants the US and China.