Latin America's Emergence in Global Services
A New Driver of Structural Change in the Region?
Business services have been one of the fastest growing export areas in emerging
economies over the past decade. The spread of information and communication technologies and the
rise in trade liberalization have facilitated the global unbundling and offshoring of services
activities from advanced to developing countries, including those in Latin America. The empirical
and analytical insights in this volume document how several countries in Latin America have entered
the offshore services sector both through the attraction of multinational companies and the
internationalization of domestic service suppliers. The future of the offshore services sector in
Latin America will depend on its ability to upgrade its knowledge - and skill-intensive product
offerings. This will call for the development of domestic technical capabilities, the adoption of
renewed industrial policies, the promotion of backward and forward linkages, and the continued
upgrading of human capital and information technology-integrated manufacturing.
© United Nations
