The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) together with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, through its Regional Programme of Partnerships for Democracy and Development in Latin America (ADELA), developed a webinar in which public authorities and private sector executives linked to electronic and digital commerce reflected on the subject.
The virtual meeting was attended by Guillermo Varela, president of the Chamber of the Digital Economy of Uruguay (CEDU) & CEO of Plexo, who said that one of the keys in the region to start making headway in digital commerce and avoid digital illiteracy is training in all areas: business, political, social, regulatory, legislative and employment.
He added that the opportunity that is opening up in the region "is to take advantage of the fact that technology breaks down borders, languages, distances, and can be that invisible thread that is stitching together our economies to convert them at some point into a true trade bloc".
Never before has Latin America had such a great chance to reinvent itself, but to achieve this it is necessary to "open up, encourage, create, unite, liberate, as opposed to everything that is closing, prohibiting, crudely regulating, protecting, relying on terms such as ideology and borders, which are languages of the past," he added.
In closing, he said that it is necessary to define interlocutors, identify the "ambassadors" of the ideas of this digital world and put them to work on a consensual plan. "The private sector is perhaps the first driving force for this, but it has to get the whole of society behind it," he said.
The webinar featured presentations by Torbjörn Fredriksson, head of ICT policy section at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and Bernardo Díaz de Astarloa, consultant and lead author of the report "Empowering Latin America and the Caribbean to better harness e-commerce and digital commerce in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic".
The panel of experts, which was moderated by Jaime Granados, head of the IDB's Trade and Investment Division, included Varela; Jorge Solano Méndez, general manager of Correos de Costa Rica; Velma Ricketts Walker, Jamaica's customs commissioner; and Diego Bassante, head of Latin America Public Policy at Facebook.
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