Issue – July 2020

COVID-19 has hit Latin America’s two largest economies - Brazil and Mexico - particularly hard, the former ranking second and the latter fourth in terms of global deaths as a result of the virus. Brazil’s GDP is expected to contract by as much as 6.5% and Mexico’s by up to 10% this year. 

From Uruguay, BIR member Nicolás Werba shares some bright news in that his country has fared quite well, avoiding a significant death toll from the pandemic. However, many a challenge remains in our region, be it navigating the lockdowns and the complex commercial environment or unfair competition presented by informal or rogue operations profiting from fiscal arbitrages that exist in our complex geography.

Nicolás Fernández from Chile rightly titles his contribution “navigators of uncertainty”. One common theme in the Latin American region is that, as local industry has been impacted by lockdowns and poor demand, local scrap has increasingly looked to export as an escape route from the difficult domestic demand environment.

I want to thank all of our BIR Latin America Committee contributors for helping put together this Mirror, as well as the BIR secretariat and leadership for their support in making this publication possible. Last but certainly not least, I’d like to thank you the reader for lending your attention to the Latin America region; recycling is a dynamic and complex business, and achieving a better understanding of the subtleties of each region is good for all of us.