The challenge is linked to early technology investments, with the “talent entrepreneurship as the central axis of development,” as well as informality, which represents a difficulty for SMEs to incorporate technology into their processes.
Latin America and the Caribbean had a GDP per capita growth of almost zero, between 2014 and 2024, due to the lack or failure of their productive development policies, said Thursday the representative of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB) in Peru, Tomás Lopes-Teixeira.
In response to the question of how to achieve higher, sustained, inclusive and more sustainable growth of the second discussion table of the high-level seminar of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Lopes-Teixeira noted that it is also the region that suffers the most from issues of political polarization and successful cases of productive development policy, which have been able to adjust to time.
However, he drew attention to a general challenge and a historic opportunity that the region has to grow, despite its economic complexity and productive diversity.
The challenge is linked to early technology investments, with the “talent entrepreneurship as the central axis of development,” as well as informality, which represents a difficulty for SMEs to incorporate technology into their processes.
In addition, there is a historic opportunity to take advantage of the technological revolution of our time – and choose what technologies are going to be used, said the IDB representative in Peru.
He also stressed the concern that these policies could reach people, as they allow social mobility and the creation of quality jobs.
Lopes-Teixeira recalled that, until a few decades ago, the process of industrialization was a job creator, but now they are global chains, and productive development policies have to be directed at other sectors, such as innovation and technology.
The technological revolution is an opportunity to increase productivity
On the other hand, ministers and experts from Latin America and the Caribbean agreed that the technological revolution is an opportunity to increase productivity in the region, which has been stuck for decades.
At the high-level seminar – How to achieve higher, sustained, inclusive and sustainable growth at the second discussion table of the Cepal high-level seminar, the panellists outlined how countries in the region should adopt economic development policies that look at technological innovation to improve productivity.
The region should aim to increase its levels of productivity that have been stagnant for decades. The economies of the region have depended to a large extent on the accumulation of labour and capital, but without significant improvements in the efficiency of their use, so growth has been unsustainable,” said the representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Peru, Bettina Woll.
He explained that, before the Third Industrial Revolution, Latin America and the Caribbean outperformed in productivity many Asian countries that later learned how to take advantage of digitization to strengthen their economies.
The current technological revolution with its rapid transformations represents an unprecedented opportunity to improve productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean, he said.
Productive development policies should focus on improving productivity through technological innovation, investment in human capital and reducing structural gaps such as gender and education, and betting on a model based on digitization, Woll added.
The representative of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB) in Peru, Tomás Lopes-Teixeira, agreed, who drew attention to a general challenge and a historic opportunity that the region has to grow, despite its economic complexity and productive diversity.
The challenge is linked to early technology investments, with the “talent entrepreneurship as the central axis of development,” as well as informality, which represents a difficulty for SMEs to incorporate technology into their processes.
In addition, there is a historic opportunity to take advantage of the technological revolution of our time – and choose what technologies are going to be used, said the IDB representative in Peru.
On the other hand, another point to highlight was to promote real private public collaboration to increase production levels, such as states offering investment and technological incentives.
Both the Minister of Economy, Planning and Development of the Dominican Republic, Pável Isa, and the Minister of Economy of Peru, José Arista, agreed that it is also key for governments to develop fiscal modernization programs that facilitate investments and ints.
But experts also have an impact that economic growth must be geared towards greater inclusion.
“An economic growth that leaves out half is not associated with sustained growth, it must be inclusive,” Arista said, adding that a successful policy must implement structural changes to improve social equity.
This article has been translated after first appearing in La Estrella