PRESENTATION
The inclusion of countries in productive articulation systems allows greater interconnection, which could reduce operating costs of transnational corporations (TNC), facilitating the entry of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and technology transfer processes. In addition, a more active participation in international production systems will boost competitiveness and efficiency of local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for them to be adapted to the required quality standards and increase their productivity levels.
In this context, Latin America needs to move forward in generating public policies that meet the needs of SMEs in a systemic manner, fostering the development and growth of enterprises within an ecosystem that facilitates productive innovation. In this connection, the proposed activities aim to identify and disseminate, through empirical analysis, a set of tools that enable decision-makers to execute programmes for the development of SMEs in Latin America and the Caribbean on their path to internationalization.
To that end, the Permanent Secretariat of SELA proposes the identification of production niches at the regional level for the creation of a Network of Strategic Alliances, which will lead to the creation of SME clusters and interconnections that promote competition, collective learning and innovation as a strategy to enter global supply chains. Insofar as these interconnections among regional productive sectors are more complex, greater capabilities of innovation, new linkages and products will be generated to strengthen the productive transformation of SMEs at the regional level.
