is expected to be a year of strong rebound in the region, with 7.2% year-on-year growth in exports and 19.9% in imports.
The strong recovery in external purchases in South America (the third region with the highest increase behind Asia and North America) reflects a rebound from the recession experienced by some of its main economies in 2019, according to the WTO. The high annual growth rate of merchandise trade volume recorded in 2021 mainly reflects the sudden decline of the previous year, which bottomed out in the second quarter of 2020.
According to a survey by the multinational Harvey Nash and the firm KPMG, the coronavirus pandemic generated one of the largest investments in technology in history. This unexpected and unplanned increase in technology investment has also been accompanied by huge changes in the way companies function, with more organizational changes in the last six months than seen in the previous ten years.
The investment propelled social networks as a channel of attention, robotization and self-attention as a basic step, and the use of tools and platforms that make management much more productive will be the trends that will mark the sector this year. Meanwhile, although electronic invoicing systems began as an alternative that allowed to save costs and inventories, today, they are used by many companies as a tool to manage financial and commercial information. They provide data on market opportunities and even allow them to demonstrate to financial institutions the payment capacity of an organization, facilitating the companies access to credit.
Starting from a lower point, year-on-year growth in the second quarter of 2021 was 22.0%, but the figure is forecast to fall to 10.9% in the third quarter and 6.6% in the fourth quarter, due in part to the rapid recovery in trade in the last two quarters of 2020. For the forecasts for 2021 to be met, only a quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.8% on average each quarter in the second half of this year was needed, which is equivalent to an annualized rate of 3.1%, asserts Castillo.
About Randall Castillo Ortega
Randall Castillo Ortega has been involved in the financial space virtually his entire professional career. In addition to having founded the financial lending firm RACO, he is also an avid outdoorsman and, along with his family, is a huge community supporter. He regularly participates in community ceremonies and events organized to drive a better environment for children and families.