June 27, 2024. – This morning, in the framework of the International Day of MSMEs, the Technical Group of SMEs of the Pacific Alliance organized a discussion (in a hybrid way) on the Public-Private Roadmap for the Development of MSMEs and Entrepreneurship in the Pacific Alliance (PA) with the participation of authorities of the bloc, the PA Business Council, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), members of the TG of SMEs and representatives of MSME trade organizations from the four countries of the Pacific Alliance.

At the beginning of the activity, Marcela Otero, SUBREI’s Multilateral General Director and PA National Coordinator for Chile, pointed out that MSMEs play a crucial role in the economy of the bloc, “in fact, more than 90% of the companies in the four countries belong to this category. It is imperative to continue working on the development of policies that support them and establish regulations that facilitate intra-Alliance trade, thus creating opportunities to access new markets”.

She also highlighted that ”we have a great challenge as a bloc, which is to increase trade integration between our countries, considering that only 2.3% of Pacific Alliance exports go to our countries”.

Rodrigo Yáñez, secretary general of Sofofa and representative of the CEAP-Chile chapter, emphasized the importance of public-private coordination and highlighted the relevance of SMEs as a driver of job creation, as well as the need for them to have access to financing in order to scale up.

Next, the IDB representative, Rodrigo Contreras, as moderator, began the discussion with the presentation of the progress of the “Public-Private Roadmap for the Development of MSMEs and Entrepreneurship in the Pacific Alliance”, by the TG of SMEs, with the aim of identifying and prioritizing the main challenges and needs faced by MSMEs in the PA countries.

Subsequently, those present were asked to talk and discuss common short, medium and long-term objectives that are shared by both the public and private sectors, in order to create a shared vision and establish clear goals to guide joint efforts, promoting an effective alignment of interests and resources.

Finally, the creation of channels of communication and continuous coordination between the two sectors was discussed, facilitating ongoing collaboration and allowing for timely adjustments to ensure the success of the proposed roadmap.

COMMUNICATIONS PPT 2024 PACIFIC ALLIANCE

June 21, 2024.- The “Investment Promotion Seminar on the Pacific Alliance Markets”, organized by the Seoul Office of UNIDO ITPO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization – Investment & Technology Promotion Office) and the embassies of the Pacific Alliance (PA) countries in the Republic of Korea -Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru- was held on June 19. This took place within the framework of the “Smart Tech Korea” fair.

The seminar, inaugurated by the Chilean Ambassador to Korea, Mathias Francke, representing the current pro tempore presidency of the Pacific Alliance, was attended by people interested in learning about the ecosystem for entrepreneurship and start-ups in the PA countries.

A representative from each country gave a presentation on the topic with a focus on start-ups, with the objective of providing a space for interaction between Korean ventures and diplomatic missions, as well as presenting public policies on the subject in each of the countries.

COMMUNICATIONS PPT 2024 PACIFIC ALLIANCE

June 4, 2024.- On this day, staff from the Ministry of Social Development and Family of Chile held a virtual webinar on the institutional and regulatory framework of the Social Information Registry, the Social Household Registry (RSH) and an interoperable administrative data system, which they currently manage in Chile.

The activity, which is part of the year’s actions of the Technical Group for Development and Inclusion (GTDIS), was aimed at peers from the countries of the Pacific Alliance – Colombia, Mexico and Peru – and other friendly countries such as Ecuador and Brazil, as well as the countries that make up the Secretariat for Central American Social Integration (SISCA), with about 120 participants.

The speakers reported on tools for the identification and selection of users of social programs; administrative records; national-subnational articulation; computer design and equipment, among others. In addition to showing interoperability, which allows the RSH to operate in conjunction with other systems, facilitating the user’s purposes.

Reference was also made to the Social Information Registry (RIS), a database containing social, civil and economic information on families, households and individuals who may potentially be beneficiaries of social programs in the country.

Likewise, the nature of the RSH, an information system whose purpose is to support the selection processes of beneficiaries of a wide range of subsidies and social programs, was explained. This Registry is built with data provided by the household and administrative databases held by the State, from various State institutions, municipalities and other public and/or private entities that administer social benefits created by law.

In addition, the modality of Socioeconomic Qualification was explained, which places each household in an income bracket, which are ordered in 7 brackets according to their income and the relationship with the organic and link with the citizenship and management of applications.

The GTDIS will continue its Webinar Program in July 2024 with the following topics: National System for Evaluation and Monitoring of Social Programs; Poverty Measurement; Intersectoral System of Social Protection and Resilient Social Protection System and Local Social Management.

COMMUNICATIONS PPT 2024 PACIFIC ALLIANCE

The Pacific Alliance Network of Fisheries and Aquaculture Research Institutions (IIPA-AP Network) has agreed to promote and share training opportunities on topics of interest to the institutions of the member countries.

June 4, 2024.- During April and May 2024, the course “Phyton: Pre-processing of geophysical data for Hydrodynamic Models” was held virtually, organized by the Fisheries Development Institute (IFOP) of Chile, with the participation of researchers from the Pacific Alliance Network of Fisheries and Aquaculture Research Institutions (IIPA-AP Network).

The course, which was given by Dr. Frank Oyala of the Baja Marine Science Project of Mexico, aimed to train professionals in the mastery of Phyton programming, providing them with the necessary skills to acquire, analyze and visualize oceanographic data efficiently. The instructor indicated that “the participants were always attentive and expectant of what would be generated in each session during the course, they were motivated and surprised by the versatility and friendliness of the programming language, as well as by the multiple tools that Python offers for their work”.

In addition to researchers from IFOP, a researcher from the Peruvian Sea Institute (IMARPE), a researcher from the José Benito Vives de Andréis Marine and Coastal Research Institute (INVEMAR) from Colombia, and two researchers from the National Institute of Fisheries Research and Development (INIDEP) from Argentina also participated.

After the course, Katherine Vásquez from IMARPE pointed out the excellent development of the course in terms of subject matter and teaching methodology, since it not only addressed the topic of data processing and generation of figures, but also “showed in detail how to download the files themselves, even in a massive way, to be able to make our own climatological calculations of different variables and show the spatial distribution of these variables and their anomalies”.

For her part, Kelis Romaña of INVEMAR indicated that satellite and reanalysis products (due to their coverage and development) allow variables to be extracted at different scales, whose processing is facilitated using programming languages such as R, Matlab and Python. “This course provided us with the basic tools to initiate, strengthen and/or facilitate the pre-processing of oceanographic databases in Python”.

The executive director of IFOP, Gonzalo Pereira, highlighted the importance of generating this type of space where professionals from the different institutions that carry out research in fisheries and aquaculture in the region can develop and/or strengthen their capacities. Pereira said: “In IFOP we will continue promoting this type of initiatives that seek to promote capacity building for the generation of better information for decision making in our countries”.

COMMUNICATIONS PPT 2024 PACIFIC ALLIANCE

The event to be held in Chile will feature three major events: a food innovation bootcamp, the largest international virtual job fair in the region and will culminate with the Youth Meeting that will take place on October 23 in Santiago de Chile, which will bring together a thousand people in person.

May 23, 2024.- With the participation of the Undersecretary of International Economic Relations of Chile, Claudia Sanhueza, representing the current pro tempore presidency of the Pacific Alliance, and the CEO of Nestlé Chile, Rodrigo Camacho, the ninth Pacific Alliance Youth Meeting was kicked off. The event, which will be held this year in Chile in conjunction with the Swiss company, annually brings together young people between the ages of 18 and 29, as well as the public and private sectors of the countries that make up the bloc, to discuss the challenges facing youth employability.

“During our pro tempore presidency of the Pacific Alliance we want to link the PA with citizenship and one of the axes is youth. In this context, the promotion of solutions to the problem of youth employment in the region is also an urgent part of our work, so this Youth Meeting is an iconic event to address this common challenge among member countries. It is also time to consolidate the bloc with a sustainable, inclusive and productive approach, focused on the environment, MSMEs, investments and global value chains, linking us more strongly with citizens”, said Undersecretary Sanhueza.

The moments that will mark this version of the Pacific Alliance Youth Meeting are: the Food Innovation Bootcamp -an online event organized by the Innovation Center of the Catholic University, where interregional teams of young people will face challenges and propose innovative solutions-; the Virtual Employability Fair -the largest in Latin America, which expects to offer 5000 job and training vacancies- and the development of the Meeting, to be held on Wednesday, October 23, 2024.

COMMUNICATIONS PPT CHILE 2024

The Pacific Alliance wishes to inform the citizens of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru that the 2024/2025 Call for the “Stipendium Hungaricum Program”, through which the Government of Hungary offers eight scholarships, is open.

Applicants will be able to enter the minimum required documents into the online system enabled by the Hungarian Government (https://apply.stipendiumhungaricum.hu/) no later than January 15, 2024 at 2 pm (Central European Time): 7 am from Mexico/8 am from Colombia and Peru/10 am from Chile.

The benefits of the scholarship are as follows: free education, monthly stipend, accommodation contribution and health insurance.

The official page of Hungary that contains more information in English about the call is: https://stipendiumhungaricum.hu/apply/

The Pacific Alliance page that has general information in Spanish is: https://becas.alianzapacifico.net/ (Section “Other AP Scholarships”).

December 14, 2023.- The Workshop “Promote the participation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in cross-border electronic commerce between the countries of the Pacific Alliance”, organized by the SME Technical Group and Entrepreneurship (GTPYME) of the PA, with the collaboration of the Republic of Korea, as an observer country of the regional bloc, and the technical assistance of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), was held yesterday in Santiago.

The Workshop, developed in ECLAC facilities, aimed to strengthen the capacities of MSMEs to facilitate their insertion in cross-border electronic commerce and brought together key actors for the development of this trade within the Pacific Alliance.

Furthermore, within the framework of the GTPYME Work Plan, this workshop had the purpose of giving continuity to the work that ECLAC has developed, within the framework of the Regional Digital Market Strategy in the PA that seeks to identify, in selected sectors, the obstacles faced by MSMEs to export through electronic and digital commerce within the bloc.

At the beginning of the workshop –and after the greeting from Keiji Inoue, officer in charge, Division of International Trade and Integration, ECLAC–, the director general (s) of Multilateral Economic Affairs of the Undersecretariat of International Economic Affairs of Chile, Alejandro Buvinic highlighted that “our disposition is that the MSMEs of the Pacific Alliance have a key role in international trade” and emphasized that “the final objective of the Regional Digital Market is to ensure that the MSMEs can market their products and services between the four countries with the same ease they do at the level of each country, considering that we have geographical proximity, the same language, time zones among many other positive externalities”.

Likewise, the counselor of the Embassy of Peru in Chile, Claudia Miranda, representing the pro tempore presidency of her country, highlighted the importance of MSMEs and emphasized the commitment established in the Strategic Vision 2030 of the Pacific Alliance, in order to strengthen and expand the participation of MSMEs, thus achieving effective use of the benefits generated by the Pacific Alliance.

For his part, the ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Chile, Hak Jae Kim, highlighted the implementation of this activity and his country’s interest in supporting work with MSMEs in the countries of the Pacific Alliance.

In the first part, Min-kyoung Park, Manager, Trade Information Department of KOTRA (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency), presented the experience of South Korea, especially the insertion of MSMEs in e-commerce.

Afterwards, the panel was developed: “Modalities of cross-border e-commerce between the PA countries and exportable offer of SMEs”, which analyzed the barriers or obstacles they face, the available digital commerce modalities, the exportable offer of each country, customs regimes, among other matters.

In the second panel, “Capacity building of MSMEs for cross-border e-commerce between PA countries and selection of MSMEs”, they focused on identifying the needs to promote export through cross-border e-commerce and defining types of support required to achieve this objective.

Next, in the panel on “Definition of technological solutions to support MSMEs”, concepts such as: Marketplace; Payment methods; Logistics solutions; Customer tracking; Marketing Tools; Sales Tools; Communication tools; Administrative Solutions, which are useful technologies that will facilitate access to cross-border trade for MSMEs.

In the last panel, on “Inputs for the action plan, goals, KPIs and monitoring”, the aim was to define the scope of the support program in terms of goals, duration, KPIs, monitoring and evaluation.

Among the panelists and moderators, there was the participation of representatives from ECLAC, the Inter-American Development Bank, the e-Commerce Institute, as well as representatives from unions and private sector companies, such as Mercado Pago, Mercado Libre, DHL, LAP, Payoneer, and platforms such as Amazon, Falabella, Linio. Also participated representatives from the four countries of the block, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, from the SME and Entrepreneurship technical groups, from Promotion Agencies, from Gender, from the Trade Facilitation Committee, and the Digital Economy Subcommittee.

Finally, the workshop concluded with the words of José Luis Castillo, general director of International Trade Negotiations of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru, pro tempore presidency of the Pacific Alliance, who highlighted that the workshop served as a crucial space, where key actors exchanged experiences and knowledge to strengthen electronic commerce among the member countries of the Pacific Alliance. In addition, he reaffirmed the commitment of the pro tempore presidency of Peru to continue promoting this type of workshops, which play a fundamental role in the formulation of policies aimed at promoting electronic commerce in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

December 14, 2023.- This Thursday took place the official launch of the Social Observatory of the Pacific Alliance (PA), designed and implemented by the Technical Group for Development and Social Inclusion of the PA, with technical support of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

It is a cutting-edge virtual instrument whose objective is to collect, systematize, manage and publish updated information on the social sector that contributes to the design and strengthening of public policies, improving the well-being of member countries, with a view to ensuring that the benefits of integration reach the subregional community, academics, public policy designers, as well as those practices that were applied in the field of Social Development to face the health crisis caused by COVID-19, and which in turn are aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Regional Agenda for Inclusive Social Development (ARDSI).

The Social Observatory was designed considering the following dimensions in its structure: Social Indicators (Education, Employment, Poverty, Income Distribution, Health, Food and Nutritional Security, Social Security, and Housing and Basic Services); Social Institutionality (rules, institutional design, management and financing tools); Social Investment (social spending); Social protection (programs); Actions against Emergencies and Social Innovation (in the field of social policies).

The dimension of “Social Institutionality” raises the recognition of the social structure of each of the countries; their management and financing tools on which they act. On the other hand, it is about identifying how the “Social Spending” of the region is being carried out, comparing the progress and challenges with the regional index for the establishment of proposals or response measures based on more inclusive and efficient public balances.

In the case of “Social Protection”, it is a favorable space that seeks to expose the main programs and initiatives that directly impact the well-being of citizens, reviewing key aspects about their response capacity, target audience, conditionalities, subprograms, among others.

A particular dimension is “Social Innovation”, which seeks to present the initiatives: platforms, actions or laboratories that are being implemented in each of the member countries and how these can be a means to mitigate the challenges in terms of poverty and inequality through innovative solutions to social problems.

It should be noted that the Social Observatory is a regional platform where two important components can be identified: a) its level of “instrumentalization”, to the extent that it allows academics, officials and policy makers to identify multiple data and tools for the design of new and better public policies; and b) its degree of “specialization and sustainability”, being a unique and specialized space that brings together figures and data in countries with common interests, population and geography through dynamic and updated information.

Finally, this instrument will make it possible to influence informed decision-making for the design of better public and social policies in the countries of the Pacific Alliance through the review of indicators and social data, and the strengthening of programs and the reorientation of interventions in the field of Social Protection towards the valorization of social investment to reduce gaps and inequalities.

You can access the Social Observatory at: https://observatorioalianzapacifico.cepal.org/es