Uruguay remains among 25 most important emerging markets in 2022

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Uruguay ranked for the second consecutive year as the 23rd most attractive emerging market in the world, according to the new edition of the Emerging Markets Logistics Index, published by Agility in February and released by the consulting firm Nueva Mayoría.

Uruguay was positioned in the ranking with a score of 4.93. Thus, it was above South Africa and below Kazakhstan, despite scoring 0.02 less than in 2021.

The ranking consists of four pillars, the first being domestic logistics opportunities, which measures the performance of each emerging market and its potential to sustain and develop the domestic demand required by any competitive logistics market. In this pillar, Uruguay scored 4.78, down 0.09 points from the previous edition.

Rosendo Fraga (Jr.), director of Nueva Mayoría, explains that while nearly half of the emerging markets suffered a comparable drop in their domestic logistics opportunities, Uruguay was the only one in Latin America to lose ground in this pillar. Paraguay, Colombia, and Peru maintained the same position, and the rest of the countries improved.

The second pillar measures international logistics opportunities by analyzing external demand for logistics-intensive services and the capacity of each emerging market to facilitate cross-border logistics operations. In this, Uruguay scored 4.41, an improvement of 0.01 points. It is the best score since 2020 but is well below its best year, 2019 when it scored 4.54.

The third pillar is business fundamentals, which evaluates emerging markets concerning their openness, robustness, fairness, and strength of each other’s business environment. It also measures respect for the rule of law and the independence of each market. The score was 6.08 for this pillar, down 0.17 points from 2021.

The last pillar was included for the first time in this edition and looks at the digital readiness of the market. Its measurements cover the population’s connectivity, digital training of the workforce, global compatibility of the business ecosystem, and entrepreneurial risk culture. The country scored 4.93 and was only surpassed in this pillar in Latin America by Chile, Brazil, and Mexico.

The Nueva Mayoría report claims that it could be credited with mitigating the declines in domestic logistics opportunities and business fundamentals suffered this year, thus keeping Uruguay in 23rd place.