Given the events that have disrupted society and business over the past few years, how might Latin America fare in a new era? Senior partner and McKinsey Global Institute director Olivia White and colleagues explore this notion in their latest research. They note that technology adoption has been supported by the rise of new, innovative firms: four-fifths of Latin American start-up “unicorns” focus on fintech and e-commerce. Yet the region imports about eight times more intellectual property than it exports, placing it at risk of falling behind other regions as tech such as AI takes off.
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A global flow map of exporters and importers of intellectual property for 2019 measured in billions of US dollars. The map animates back and forth between export and import flows and shows that Latin America imports about eight times the value of IP that it exports. For example, in 2019, $2.1 billion in IP was exported by Latin America and the Caribbean ($0.2 billion to the Asia–Pacific region, $0.7 billion to the EU, and $1.3 billion dollars to the US and Canada), while $16.5 billion was imported ($2.1 billion from the Asia–Pacific region, $6.1 billion from the EU, and $8.4 billion from the US and Canada).
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To read the article, see “What could a new era mean for Latin America?,” July 20, 2023.