SMEs and Exports : A Latin American and Caribbean Perspective

It is well known that, despite improvements in recent years, a number of LAC countries' exports still remain below their potential and what would be expected judging from their levels of development. The same holds for their degrees of export diversification (Blyde et al., 2014). In addition, their participation in global value chains (GVC) also seems to be relatively limited (Blyde Volpe Martincus, 2011). This matters for the countries' economic prospects, and potentially to a large extent. Low levels of openness and lack of diversification can be costly in terms of economic growth, whereas limited participation in GVC can restrict access to international flows of knowledge and technology, thereby reducing the potential for learning and productivity improvements in local firms (e.g., Brainard Cooper, 1968; Frankel Romer, 1999). The increased availability of firm-level export data in recent years has made it possible to also learn that LAC trade, like in many countries around the world, is primarily driven by large, multi-product, multidestination exporters that account for a very small share of the number of direct exporters. According to recent data, many LAC economies' exports are generated by the top-1 percent of exporters (Volpe Martincus Graziano, 2013). However, rather little is known about the role of small- and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) in the region’s trade, in spite of the fact that they make up more than 90 per cent of firms and account for a substantial portion of employment in these countries (e.g., ECLAC OECD, 2012). In particular, there are a series of pending yet pivotal questions, such as: To what extent and how do SMEs contribute to their countries' exports? How internationalized are LAC SMEs compared to SMEs in other world regions? How diversified are LAC SMEs' exports across products and destinations? What are the key bottlenecks to LAC SME internationalization?