Chilean exports rose 9% in the first two months of the year, boosted by the services sector

Chilean exports rose 9 percent in the first two months of the year compared to the same period in 2022, driven by the services sector, which grew by 30 percent, the Undersecretariat for International Economic Relations (Subrei) of the Foreign Ministry reported yesterday.

“We see that the digitalization of economies and the outsourcing of productive processes in industries are boosting our services exports, which are not only increasing in value, but also in several companies and diversity of services,” said Subrei Undersecretary José Miguel Ahumada.

The entity highlighted that the categories of services that grew the most in the referred months were consultancy, maintenance, and repair of ships and aircraft and information technologies.

Also, animation and other sections, such as information capture through drones and geological prospecting.

According to the Subrei, exports from the Andean country totaled 17,262.2 million dollars in the first two months of the year, according to data from the Central Bank, the National Customs Service, and the Internal Revenue Service.

In this respect, the government highlighted the recovery of fruit shipments, the continued rise in lithium shipments, and a smaller drop in copper exports, which fell 22 percent in January and closed February with a loss of 4 percent.

Ahumada said that 2023 offers a more promising international outlook for the “green” productive transition and the use of clean energies, “which will boost our copper and lithium-based products”.

He stressed the importance of “capitalizing on this international context to strengthen our export sector, in particular, the offer aimed at green industries, manufacturing, and services, as they will undoubtedly be the driving forces for the development of countries in the coming decades”.

According to the Subrei, Chilean exports continue to be sustained by the non-copper supply, which totaled foreign sales of more than 10,834 million dollars in the first two months of the year, 28 percent more than in the same period of 2022.

The goods that contributed most to the increase in exports were lithium carbonate, molybdenum oxide, fresh cherries, salmon, plums, grapes, pork, and blueberries.

As for imports, they totaled US$13.7 billion in January and February, 18 percent less than the previous year’s first two months.

Subrei attributed this result to domestic demand adjusted by inflation containment measures and the normalization of international prices of raw materials and international cargo transportation.

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