The prospects of world trade by 2023 are not auspicious, warns ECLAC, due to the persistence of the conflict in Ukraine, the tightening of monetary policies, the energy crisis in Europe and the worsening of the pandemic in China. While it lasted in 2022 the recovery of regional trade in goods observed in 2021, although with less dynamism and mainly driven by the price hike, especially oil. The recomposition of trade services it was slower than that of trade in goods, although it improved in 2022 hand in hand with the gradual reactivation of tourism.
In Argentina Exports of goods were a record in 2022 for 88,446 million dollars, they grew 13.5 percent year-on-year according to INDEC. Crude oil sales totaled 3.867 million and an increase of 109 percent. Even so, the total energy balance continued to be in deficit by 4,470 million dollars.
In 2022 the expansion projections of the trade volume from 4.7 to 3.5 percent and for 2023 down to 1 percentclarifies ECLAC. Given this difficult international situation, “it is urgent to advance in the formation of a broad and stable regional market that generates efficient scales of production and promotes intra-regional production chains”, in line with many statements heard this week in the framework of the Summit of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) in favor of deepening regional integration: in 2022 and like In 2021, intraregional trade grew more than total Latin American exports, but it has been weakening in recent years.
The low dynamism of intraregional trade since the mid-2010s particularly affected the manufacturing shipments, since it is a more diverse business with the majority participation of MSMEs. These are links that favor productive and export diversification in the region. Likewise, the latest report “International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean 2022” warns that the The region’s trade deficit in manufacturing doubled as a percentage of GDP in the last two decades, and in said period the weight of manufactures in total exports of goods fell in all South American countries, only Mexico is an exception to this pattern. The The region is only a globally relevant player in the automotive and food industriesdrinks and tobacco.
