How do Southern Cone firms engage in digital trade? Nextrade finds out with the IDB

Southern Cone governments have long been committed to ecommerce development as a means to promote trade, creating capacity-building programs and initiatives to promote ecommerce and businesses’ digital transformation. The regional governments have also collaborated to enable intra-regional ecommerce. In 2021, the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, issued an ecommerce agreement, committing to allow cross-border transfers of data, ban duties on electronic transmissions, and protect the personal data of ecommerce users.

In 2022 Nextrade was hired b the IDB to study the growth and relevance of cross-border ecommerce in the Southern Cone (especially Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay), and identify policies and programs to promote ecommerce further. Specifically, this report uses trade, business survey, and policy data to:

· Review Southern Cone economies’ intra- and extra-regional ecommerce in goods and services and how the region compares to other regions in the relevance of cross-border ecommerce;

· Assess through a business survey and case studies how different types of firms are digitizing and using ecommerce to engage in trade and enter into regional and global value chains; and

· Discuss policies that regional governments can deploy to promote regional forms’ cross-border ecommerce.

Stay tuned or a report in the summer of 2023.