As an activity to open the Ministerial Stage, a Forum titled “Towards productive integration in Latin America and the Caribbean” will be held on Thursday 20 in the afternoon, with the participation of prominent personalities dealing with the topic. Representatives from SELA Member States will also participate.

This forum is aimed at analyzing the main factors to strengthen industrialization and productive integration in Latin American and Caribbean nations.

Based on the presentations delivered by the speakers, the Member States could refer to the following issues:

1. Improving in the pattern of international insertion of Latin America and the Caribbean goes in tandem with the transformation of the region’s productive structure, so as to enable it to develop competitive products and services in the global market. This involves a combination of economic and social policies – particularly in the areas of education, science and technology – that allows for incorporating and disseminating technical progress, changing production flows and consequently improving the structure of income distribution in our region.
2. Economic growth must be conceived as the result of the interaction of different dynamics: capital accumulation, accumulation of knowledge applied to production, structural change and institutional development.
3. The income gap between developed countries and Latin America and the Caribbean has tended to expand, essentially because of the increased differences in terms of productivity. Latin American and Caribbean countries could speed up their economic growth and reduce their per capita income gaps compared to industrialized nations by implementing policies to promote, not only an increase in investments, but also the best use of existing resources in their economies.
4. In addition to strong investments in developing infrastructure that are critical to bridging productivity gaps, the foregoing entails the implementation of coherent policies for industrial development and technological upgrading, based on a pragmatic and strategic approach aimed at incorporating investment as a key element of the development programmes and policies. Such policies would contribute to a more rapid and sustainable growth and to structural and technological change, and would allow for a more efficient foreign trade integration by increasing the domestic value added of goods and services through a network of productive forward and backward links at the national level.