The Trends Changing the Economies of Latin America

Abstract

At the turn of the second and third decades of the 21st century, new trends began to form in the economies of Latin America, which had experienced deep crisis shocks. In the future the development of these trends can adjust and strengthen the place and role of the region in the system of world economic relations. One of these trends is the rapid growth of the technology sector based on innovation and digitalization, which is able to ensure the transition of the region to a “new business normal,” understanding by this term consistent structural modernization and organic adaptation of the economies of Latin American countries to post-Covid realities. The main actors in this transition to the new economy are Latin American transnational corporations, the so-called multilatinas, and their avant-garde form, technolatinas, which are associated with innovations and high technology. At the same time, it is critically important to achieve a systemic relationship between the economic policy of the state and the business strategy of technologically advanced private companies. An effective public–private partnership seems to be a necessary condition for long-overdue institutional and structural reforms, the purpose of which should be to turn Latin America into a “region of start-ups” and a space of high-tech ecosystems. This article shows that the strategic task at the stage of a macroeconomic transition is to expand the domestic and foreign markets of the countries of the region for all types of Latin American goods and services, including technological and high-tech. According to the author, the best way to achieve this goal lies in the formation of a triple circulation economy or, in other words, the parallel and balanced development of national and regional markets with the simultaneous activation and diversification of foreign economic relations far beyond Latin America. It goes without saying that it is a long process, and the countries of the region are only at the very beginning of a marked transformation.