Hurricane Katrina and its Impact on Latin America

This issue of the FAL Bulletin contains the report prepared jointly in September 2005 by three ECLAC divisions (the Division of International Trade and Integration, the Economic Development Division and the Statistics and Economic Projections Division) on the consequences of Hurricane Katrina for the Latin American countries, especially in relation to international trade and macroeconomic impacts in the region. In addition, the web version of this issue includes two tables with data on United States imports from Latin American countries and the proportion that enters through the Port of New Orleans.  

Recent increases in shipping costs and their impact on exports from Latin America

This issue of the FAL Bulletin is based on a study prepared by ECLAC which works out a provisional approach for estimating the impact of increases in freight rates on exports from Latin America during the last few quarters. The total cost of exports from the region reflects the increases in three different components: the quantities exported, the prices of the goods and the freight charges. The influence of each of these is estimated.The information bases used are comprised of data obtained from the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) (International Transport Database) and the authors own direct compilation. The conclusion is that total exports from Latin America varied by US$ 5.72 billion in the first half of 2004 compared with the first half of 2003; of this amount, US$ 2,105,000,000 correspond to the variation in price and quantity and US$ 3,615,000,000 represent the increase in export freight rates. When compared with the first half of 2002, the variation is in excess of US$ 8 billion.