The Uruguayan service exports broke a four-year negative streak in 2022 and they grew 47% compared to 2021. One of the most important factors was the recovery of tourism in relation to the two previous years when it was affected by covid-19.
He Uruguay XXI Institute published an annual report on service exports in 2022. There it separated them into two groups: the traditional, made up of tourism and transport and related, and the non-traditional, in which it grouped global services, IT, professionals, telecommunications, technical, intellectual property, personal, cultural and recreational and others.
Between the two groups they totaled exports for US$ 5,449 million with a marked year-on-year growth of 47%. In the year, the tourism sector and non-traditional services positively affected the increase. Exports of services dragged four annual falls since 2018, mainly due to the impact of the containment measures and the closure of borders due to the pandemic during 2020 and 2021.
Uruguay XXI pointed out that the snon-traditional services were resilient to the crisiswith a smaller drop in 2020 and a more dynamic recovery in 2021. Last year, exports were 15% above sales a year ago.
In turn, the global export services they were for US$ 2,902 million, also with a 15% increase in the interannual measurement.
Tourism
Uruguay XXI indicated that in 2019 tourism represented 42% of service exports. remembered that from April 2020 to October 2021 local borders were closed to foreign visitors, which generated a slump in revenue. In that period they accumulated a decrease of 77% compared to the values of 2019.
Camila Casas
tourism in summer
The document explained that the improvement in the health situation, due to the vaccination plan that was established in the country, allowed the opening of borders as of November 2021 and already in 2022 there was a growth in the number of tourists who entered Uruguay, although it was 23% below those observed in pre-pandemic.
During the past year tourism exports were verified by US$1,743 milliontripling the value of 2021, but 23% below that registered in 2019.
ICTs
in the field of Information technology and communications (TIC) achieved exports for US$ 1,172 million with an interannual growth of 20%.
Pexels
information technology
Within that segment, the computer software services They were the ones with the greatest expansion; sales were for US$ 959 with an increase of 20%. According to Uruguay XXI, these are services that have shown a growing trend in recent years despite the decline in 2021.
In turn, exports of Telecommunications services registered an increase of 18% with US$ 213 million.
Other services
The business services, which include professionals and technicians, totaled US$ 1,272 million in 2020 with a year-on-year increase of 13%. In the case of financial services, they had a minimum growth of 5% with sales of US$ 325 million.
The transportation and related services category had exports for US$ 663 million last year, with a rise of 30%.
segment other non-traditional services achieved sales of US$ 142 million and an interannual increase of 8%.
