Uruguay Export – Uruguay moving forward
Uruguay export is moving forward, there is no doubt about it. In recent years, this small country has not only increased its primary exports and found new markets but also found new services to offer abroad.
Challenging times have made Uruguay get new approaches to becoming part of the market and aiming at first world competences.
Slow death or new beginnings, Uruguay has options and a bright future. This small country has gone through a surprising turn regarding information transmission expertise and this affected its commercial targets.
Looking back, there is no doubt that Uruguay has undertaken an outward-looking process over the last 25 years that has made it possible to be a dynamic participant in global trade trends and at the same time it started to a profound transformation.
Services such as customer service, finance, accounting, logistic coordination, audiovisual arts, programming and design have grown exponentially in the last years. Uruguay has an investigation team that is responsible for defining the sectors with the most potential to export global services. The ones with most potential are biotechnology and human health, telemedicine and export of architectural services and legal advice has developed well.
All of them are reinforced by IT development and multinational teams that help maintain their new enterprises value abroad. The government has also reinforced the trend export services by the exemption from paying the 22% VAT.
There is plenty of information on business opportunities in new markets and the competitive environment in which Uruguay operates when promoting export activities.
However export companies still face difficulties in selling in foreign markets and give up on that idea due to the lack of “a global mind”. They must also learn to think and link differently than in Uruguay, where contacts are through mutual acquaintances.
New training and thematic workshop held throughout the year have helped companies to develop their export access to markets abroad.
Promotional campaigns in international trade fairs with economic benefits have seduced small companies to join the exporting process.
The renewed trade services the world has imposed have made Uruguay companies to incline towards outsourcing. Hence, offshoring has become a distinctive activity in Uruguay.
This transformation first affected the Uruguayan exports’ structure positively, with a current result of 1,330 exports of global employing 18, 000 people. This has proven that Uruguay is an eye-catching export-launching platform for the region and the world.
Qualified human resources at competitive costs have increased, as well as first-class technological infrastructure such as the Free Trade Zone (link) in different spots of Uruguay where reliable business environment and investing initiatives take place.
Many international companies set up their Shared Services Centers (SSC) and their Regional Distribution Centers (RDC) in Uruguay, improving their business processes and regional insertion.
Due to the increasing significance of the sector and its potential as a growth driver, the state is boosting the development of the Global Services sector, focused on the above-mentioned areas.
Uruguay is consistently promoting these new advantages and showing it is a strategic destination for the setup of shared service centers and it boosts the quality of human resources in the sector.
The main challenges for the coming years consist of consolidating Uruguay’s position, improving the sector-based characterization and generating statistical data, strengthening the development of identified sectors and spreading the cross-sectional brand, Uruguay Smart Services.
Uruguay Audiovisual
One of the new export options is Uruguay Audiovisual shoot to capture customers abroad.
With more than 20 million dollars annual export of services only in the realization of advertising campaigns and the creation of 3500 direct jobs, the audiovisual sector promotes Uruguay as a regional hub for content production.
“Uruguay Audiovisual”, is a new sector that seeks to stand outside the borders with the development of quality content.
More than 100 national and private engaged companies are involved in the production of films, videos and other related activities to improve Uruguay abroad.
To help promote Uruguay abroad, Uruguay, created the brand “Uruguay Audiovisual “to accompany the different marketing campaigns that are made to communicate to the world the strengths and special features offered by the country when it comes to providing quality products and services.
Uruguay Audiovisual highlights the main strengths of the country to attract film shoots, tax benefits and human resources. In the case of international co-productions in which Uruguay participates as service exporters.
By Mary Ann Thompson
