The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on Tuesday released its preliminary report on the region's foreign trade in 2020, estimating that the region's exports to China will buck the trend by 2 percent in 2020.
The report said that the rapid spread of the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020 and the measures taken by governments to prevent the epidemic have seriously hit international economic and trade activities. It is estimated that Latin America and the Caribbean will see a decline in exports by 13% and imports by 20% in 2020, which is the worst performance since the international financial crisis.
The report estimates that exports within Latin America and the Caribbean will fall by 24 per cent in 2020, while exports to the US and the EU will fall by 14 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.Exports to China from the region rose 2 per cent, led by agricultural products, minerals and metals.
Exports from Latin America and the Caribbean to China have continued to grow since March 2020, as the country has moved quickly to contain the epidemic and promote economic recovery, the report said.
ECLAC had forecast that the Latin American and Caribbean region would contract by 7.7 per cent in 2020 and grow by 3.7 per cent in 2021.