The liberalization of environmental goods and services: overview and implications for Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

This paper focuses primarily on proposals to liberalize trade of Environmental Goods, characterizing the trade of these products in Latin America and the Caribbean. The objective is to help identify trends, risks and opportunities for exporters as well as for importers, in a context of increased global competition in manufactured products from Asia and China in particular. For Latin America and the Caribbean, implementing policies aimed at both lowering trade barriers to environmental goods and services and "greening" the region's export basket will result in gains both for the environment and for productive and export diversification since some countries are already leaders in global markets of environmental goods and services and are well positioned to expand their positions. There are large risks, however, given the existing preferential access by some developing countries and the significant differences in manufacturing capacity that threaten domestic industries of key technologies.