Most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean aren’t fully harnessing the potential of international trade, an important driver of growth for emerging market economies. While the region has made some progress on trade openness, it continues to be held back due largely to poor infrastructure, burdensome customs clearance procedures, as well as relatively high tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade. One important measure for trade openness, the sum of exports and imports of goods and services, stands at just 47 percent of Gross Domestic Product.
That’s about 20 percentage points below the level for other emerging markets around the world. Trade between countries in the region also lags and has stayed broadly flat at less than 20 percent of Latin America’s total trade. That amounts to just half the level of intra-regional trade in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and a third of the level in East Asia.
