WASHINGTON, CMC -The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) said Tuesday that the value of exports from Latin America and the Caribbean(LAC) grew by an estimated 4.1 percent last year, recovering from a 1.6 percent decline in 2023.
According to the latest IDB’s “Trade Trends Estimates for Latin America and the Caribbean,” drawing on data for 2024, the report attributes the region’s export growth to higher shipment volumes as prices stagnated.
The IDB said exports from the Caribbean rallied significantly, growing by 18.3 percent in 2024 after a 14.9 percent drop in 2023.
However, while the trade outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean has improved significantly over the past year, with the region’s exports exiting a contractionary phase, the report cautions that there are still no signs of sustained growth.
“The risks to regional trade remain balanced, but projections point to only modest growth given the prevailing uncertainty in the global economy,” said Paolo Giordano, Principal Economist at the IDB’s Productivity, Trade, and Innovation Sector, who coordinated the report. “To ensure foreign trade continues to make a meaningful contribution to economic growth, the region needs to prioritize reforms and investments that boost productivity, facilitate trade, and attract investment,” he added.
Export performance varied significantly across the subregions of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The IDB said that this year’s trade growth was spearheaded by South America, where export volumes surged. The Caribbean’s performance also rallied, while exports from Central America remained stagnant.
The prices of Latin America and the Caribbean’s main export commodities, with the exception of coffee and copper, declined steadily in 2024.
Coffee prices surged by 57.7 percent year-on-year, while copper grew by 9.4 percent. In contrast, there were significant year-on-year drops for soybeans (-22.1 percent), sugar (-13.7 percent), iron (-9.2 percent), and oil (-2.7 percent).
The IDB expects this downward trend to continue into the coming quarters as global markets remain highly volatile.
South America’s exports grew by an estimated four percent last year after falling by 4.4 percent in 2023. The driving force behind this increase was export volumes, which surged from 3.6 percent growth in 2023 to 6.9 percent in 2024 amid ongoing price declines.
The IDB added that the region’s total imports also rebounded, showing modest growth (3.2 percent) after a sharp decline in 2023 (-6.8 percent).
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