Exports Plunge As COVID-19 Slams Latin America Hard

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. June 5, 2020: There are over 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in Latin America and as the region struggles with deaths and a lock down that has stagnated the economy, exports too have been hit hard.

The IDB on Thursday said the drop in the value of the region’s exports is estimated to be around 30 percent year-on-year as of April 2020.

According to the Bank, the value of exports from Latin America contracted by 3.2 percent in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. Export volumes fell by an estimated 1.2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020, after growing 0.5 percent in 2019.

The drop in intra-regional export flows within Latin America (8.6 percent) was the main contractive factor in the first quarter, followed by the downturn in shipments to the European Union (7.1 percent) and the United States (-1.0 percent).

The news came as Brazil added over 11,000 news confirmed coronavirus cases Thursday and reported another 491 new deaths as its case tally reached 595,112, the most in Latin America and the second highest globally.