E-commerce services and digital economy - UN ECLAC

Technological changes are transforming the world economy. While globalization in the 20th Century was focused on goods, services and financial flows, globalization in the 21st Century is focused on ideas, information and innovation. In this context, international trade has an increasingly large component of digital flows; cross-border digital flows, for example, grew 45 times between 2005 and 2014. Moreover, twelve percent of trade in goods and 50% of trade in services is undertaken on digital platforms. In this context, the insertion and competitiveness of developing countries into the global economy depends on designing and implementing trade and industrial policies that can adequately address changes in the global economy. The Division of International Trade and Integration, together with the Division of Production, Productivity and Management, has undertaken extensive analysis in this area. Activities and achievements include publications such as “The new digital revolution: from the consumer Internet to the industrial Internet” and participation in the Fifth Ministerial Conference on the Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean.