Transportation and Communication Infrastructure in Brazil

AQ Editor-in-Chief Christopher Sabatini will chair a panel focusing on transportation and communication infrastructure in Latin America, how they facilitate and/or hinder commerce and economic development, and what public and private incentives can be deployed to resolve these issues. Part of a comprehensive event organized by Americas Society/Council of the Americas on the topic of infrastructure, the panel will take place in Recife on Wednesday, February 8, from 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. It will also be webcast.

The discussion will draw on original research conducted by Barbara Kotschwar of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in collaboration with Americas Society and with support from the GE foundation. The research, published in the most recent issue of Americas Quarterly, found that, though concerted unilateral, regional and multilateral trade liberalization efforts have substantially increased trade with and among Latin American countries in the past two decades, other, non-tariff barriers persist as significant obstacles to trade. Chief among them is inadequate infrastructure, which has not only impeded the region from further global integration, but is also a cause of Latin America’s lagging performance in world trade compared to Asian countries.

Learn more about this event on the conference blog: www.as-coa.org/Brazil2012.