Uruguay y la necesidad de modernizar su estructura institucional para desarrollar su estrategia de inserción comercial internacional. ¿Existe hoy una estructura institucional abocada a la inserción económica-comercial internacional del país?

Abstract

Uruguay has an institutional structure dedicated to international economic and trade integration, which has been strongly influenced by our presence in Mercosur over the last 30 years. The institutional design of foreign trade policy is one of the pillars on which a country’s international insertion strategy is based. Foreign trade policy cannot be divorced from the institutions and processes that shape it. The contents of a policy are important, but so are the formal aspects that allow those contents to flow. For a country the size of Uruguay, development is closely linked to how it manages to insert itself into other markets. In addition, Uruguay needs to sustain its economic and trade insertion based on agreements whose legal and institutional nature allows it to deploy a proactive and dynamic external trade policy that has a positive impact on competitiveness. As a result of the poor results obtained by the regional trade bloc throughout its history in terms of its external trade agenda and considering a change of government in Uruguay in March 2020, it is perceived that the country is at a turning point that can generate new opportunities. That is why, in this research, we have decided to delve into what institutional architecture we have and what need for modernization and adaptation it requires to be efficient, dynamic, proactive, and able to work in a coordinated manner.