The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the support of the Regional Centre for Studies on the Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br) of the Information and Coordination Centre of Punto BR (NIC.br) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), held a webinar to reflect on the digital transformation in MERCOSUR countries and articulate the debate with the regional agendas of Latin America and others.
The event titled “Digital Technologies: Innovation, Productivity and Work in MERCOSUR” It took place on October 6 and 7, 2021.
During the first day, speakers examined scenarios for digital transformation: artificial intelligence and new technologies for innovation, productivity and work.
Opening the debate, Luciana Mancini, Director of the Department of Technological Development of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, She recalled: “The Digital Agenda Group was created in 2017 with the aim of promoting the development of a digital MERCOSUR” and stated that “since then, important initiatives have been developed, from the pooling of measures on national cybersecurity standards to the negotiation and signing of a mutual recognition agreement for digital signature certificates in 2019.” Likewise, the official highlighted that “the transformation of public and private services is often relegated to the background of negotiations, paying attention to tariff and customs issues; however, these issues take on new nuances in the reality of cross-border trade.” In this context, she pointed out that “the current Brazilian presidency of MERCOSUR is promoting important measures to strengthen the digital agenda.”
Moderating the first panelDaniel Cavalcanti, General Coordinator of Public Policies for Telecommunications Services of the Ministry of Communications of Brazil, He stated that “the government is a service provider and must be digitalized.” In this regard, he stated that “it has been proven that digital transformation is an opportunity for the competitiveness of countries and MERCOSUR” and said: “There is a positive correlation between productivity, the intensity of technology adoption and capital income.”
Moreover, Sebastián Rovira, Economic Affairs Officer at ECLAC, said that “Latin America must take advantage of digital tools and promote the transformation of production to get out of the productivity trap” and stressed that “digital technologies dynamize production chains.” In this regard, he highlighted that “there are initiatives at the regional level to promote smart manufacturing with the support of the private sector: SENAI 4.O (Brazil), the Argentina X Center (Argentina) and CAIME (Uruguay).”
Along those linesJorge Arbache, Vice President of the Private Sector of CAF, He mentioned the Internet for All initiative (Peru) and the submarine cable between Chile and Australia, among others. He also warned that “countries in the region have access to many technologies, but it is not enough.” For this reason, the expert said that “it is more important to develop technologies in agriculture, mining, forests, water, and climate change, so that the region can derive relative benefits from these areas.”
Given the need to incorporate science and technology into production processesMariana Ferreira, National Director of Knowledge Economy Development of the Ministry of Productive Development of Argentina, called for not forgetting the relevance of trade in services and data as an economic and strategic resource. In relation to this, the Argentine expert explained the implementation and benefits of the public policy of sectoral promotion with the Law of Software Promotion (from 2004 to 2019) and the Law of the Knowledge Economy (from 2020). She also mentioned the Argentina Program Plan aimed at training in programming topics, focused on human resources as vectors of digitalization of products and processes.
To its turn, Davor Orlic, Chief Operating Officer of the International Artificial Intelligence Research Center, He stressed “the importance of finding sustainable paths that have a convergence in human capital.” He suggested working with the European Union and United Nations offices to understand what opportunities benefit citizens.
In that line, Lucas Tadeu Melo Câmara, Executive Director of the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution – C4IR recommended to seek “what are the strategic areas for taking steps towards the future, considering joint collaboration in the harmonization of international rules.”
With the focus on the problems to be solved and how Mercosur can expand its participation in regional and global trade, Bernardo Díaz de Astarloa, Professor at the University of Buenos Aires, He referred to two complementary investments linked to companies and countries. “It is important that countries get involved in the complementarity of digital tools for the internal processes of companies. Meanwhile, it will be profitable for companies to adopt digital technology if they find in their internationalization process that the public sector is compatible with this technology,” he said.
“There is no point in companies incorporating technology if it is not compatible with the VUCE or if Authorized Economic Operators are limited to large companies,” warned the academic and maintained that “digital transformation must be in the private and public sectors.”
Given this challenging context, the second day of the seminar, which seeks to contribute to the debate and action for the deployment and use of digital technologies at the national and regional levels to support development processes, was aimed at regional exchanges on innovative methodologies for measuring the digital economy, mainly those based on alternative data sources.
Participating in the event were José Luis Cervera (President of DEVSTAT), Leonardo Lins (Researcher – Cetic.br|NIC.br), Romina Da Re (General Director of Productive Innovation and Digital Economy, Paraguay), Scarlett Fondeur Gil (UNCTAD), Valeria Jordán (Economic Affairs Officer – ECLAC) and Susana Dornel (Information Society Area, AGESIC, Uruguay), moderated by Alexandre Barbosa. (Cetic.br | NIC.br) [Webinar Recording and Landing Page]
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