Don Heriberto Martinez, a 55-year-old truck driver from El Salvador, spent most of his adult life transporting goods down the Pacific corridor. The corridor is the shortest route between Mexico and Panama, where six billion dollars of commercial goods are transported every year. Martinez usually spends eight days to drive its 3,200 kilometers. On the other hand, Dennis Kimetto … [Read more...] about Who Would Arrive First on a Trip between Mexico and Panama: A Marathon Runner or a Truck Driver?
Regional Integration
5 Data Visualization Tools in INTrade to help you get a handle on LAC trade and integration
The Western Hemisphere covers over 34 countries, each with different factor endowments and development histories, and linked by a complex "spaghetti bowl" of regional integration projects and bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements. Making sense of any one part of these is challenging, but the Integration and Trade Sector's INTrade system offers information that can help … [Read more...] about 5 Data Visualization Tools in INTrade to help you get a handle on LAC trade and integration
Are we entering a new era of trade facilitation cooperation in Latin America?
This afternoon, Brazil’s Ministry of Industry, Foreign Trade and Services and Argentina’s Ministry of Production announced a technical cooperation with the Inter-American Development Bank. The goal is to intensify areas for dialogue between Brazilian and Argentinian governments and private sectors to effectively implement measures to facilitate bilateral trade. The IDB will … [Read more...] about Are we entering a new era of trade facilitation cooperation in Latin America?
The Integration Waze: the partnership between INTAL and Latinobarómetro and the region’s demand for integration
The popular smartphone app Waze tells you the quickest, least congested route for getting wherever it is you want to go. Few roads have been as winding as Latin America’s path to integration, which has involved progress and setbacks, bogus shortcuts, and even the occasional roadblock and picket line. So how can we work out the best route to integration? The secret of Waze’s … [Read more...] about The Integration Waze: the partnership between INTAL and Latinobarómetro and the region’s demand for integration
The Stabilization of Prices Favored Regional Exports in 2016
According to Trade Trend Estimates: Latin America and the Caribbean, in 2016, exports from Latin America and the Caribbean have shrunk by an estimated 6%, which points to a tempering of the severe 15% contraction of 2015. Almost every country in the region saw a slowing in the pace of the contraction of foreign sales (Figure 1). Remarkably, starting from August 2016, the region … [Read more...] about The Stabilization of Prices Favored Regional Exports in 2016