WASHINGTON D.C., USA, Wed. Jan. 19, 2022– At the end of December, The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) published the 2022 edition of its trade trend estimates for Latin America and the Caribbean. The report, which estimates the region’s international trade flows for the past year, indicated that Belize’s export values grew by 11.9%—a substantial increase from what was seen in 2020. Overall, there has been a considerable increase in exports across the region.

“Exports from Latin America and the Caribbean have recovered from the initial shock of the Covid-19 pandemic. Export values are already back above pre-pandemic levels in most countries in the region. This recovery owed mainly to improved prices for some of the region’s main export commodities, while volumes recovered more slowly,” stated the report.

The prices of commodities such as coffee, soybeans, and sugar all reached higher-than-average levels by November of 2021. The volume of exports from the region also increased—growing by an estimated 10.9% after declining by 6.1% in 2020. The IDB also noted, however, that the recent new wave of COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant may put a strain on the evolution of trade flows, thus slowing down growth in the coming months.

“At a time when the effects of the pandemic continue to weigh on domestic markets and the margin for countercyclical economic policies is likely to shrink, importing growth from the rest of the world through international trade continues to be crucial to overcoming the worst economic crisis of the last century,” concluded the report.

The entirety of the 2022 edition of trade trend estimates for Latin America and the Caribbean is available for download on the IDB website.