The Bank of Guatemala and the Guatemalan Association of Exporters (AGEXPORT) present the methodology used to register the export of services from Guatemala, in accordance with the international standards suggested by the (IMF) in the Sixth Edition of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6), with the aim of strengthening Guatemala’s position as an international provider of high-quality services, with growth potential and contribution to development.
This achievement has been possible thanks to the efforts made by the Bank of Guatemala as part of its strategic objective of adopting new international standards and best practices, for which it has had the support of IMF experts and the inter-institutional support of several public and private entities through the formation of technical tables, which will allow comparison with the registry of exports of services from other countries, as a way of measuring the growth and potential of Guatemala with respect to other competitors such as Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, Central America, among others.
Within the results published by the Bank of Guatemala, the significant growth in the exported value of services stands out, which went from US$2,226 million in 2008, to a projected closing of US$3,756 million in 2022, the data that clearly shows the potential of the sector. and its resilient growth, after having relevant falls in 2020 and 2021 derived from the pandemic.
“The potential that Guatemala has will be reflected in global market trends, digital companies, cybersecurity, high standards in hygiene and cleaning measures, teleworking and decentralization, digital transformation, artificial intelligence; internet of things, process automation, virtual and augmented reality, purpose-driven and sustainable companies, and telemedicine. Today we have the opportunity to support with hard and official data that will allow the opening of new markets, public policies focused on generating human talent and facilitation of transactions, as cooperation for the strengthening of SMEs and MSMEs, which are the ones that primarily integrate the sector”, commented the president of Agexport, Guillermo Montano.
Other benefits that the Services Sector will have is to measure the impact of the sector for the management of cooperation funds, but mainly, and the most relevant at this time, is to visualize service exports in the balance of payments statistics published by the Guatemalan Bank.
The Guatemalan export services sector is 18 years old since its construction began and has managed to enter the markets with a creative, hospitable, technical and professional offer, recognized internationally for its quality. Within AGEXPORT it is organized by 6 business clusters: Health and Wellness Tourism; Sustainable tourism; Laboratories; Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO); Orange Economy; KPO, Transport and Logistics and Contact Center and BPO.
How does it work?
The Balance of Payments is a statistical scheme that summarizes, for a given period, the economic transactions between an economy with the rest of the world. It is compiled based on the International Monetary Fund’s Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, Sixth Edition (BPM6) and the 2010 Manual of International Trade in Services Statistics.
BPM6 will provide up-to-date international standards covering methodologies for compiling and reporting balance of payments statistics. To guarantee the coherence of the results and comparability between countries, the IMF will require that the information be homogeneous, consistent, timely and with a defined periodicity.
Authorities of the Bank of Guatemala indicated that the hard data of the services sector will be obtained every quarter. And, since today, the website of the banking institution can be found in the Macroeconomic Statistics section, the statistics on the behavior of the export and import of assets as well as the export and import of services. The Bank of Guatemala has already published on its website that the total amount of exports of assets and services from Guatemala, at the end of that year, reached US$18,056.3 million.
The important thing today is to demonstrate this public-private alliance that has been operating since 2005, where together with Agexport and the International Monetary Fund, Bank of Guatemala, this model has been built with the main objective of demonstrating these US$ 4 billion on the website and in the national accounts of the central bank. Now this, it can be seen in a detailed way, what it will allow is that any investor can already buy with a very well done methodology, how much services are exported and imported in the country; Services have had an extremely important growth of 30% from 2021 to 2022 and it strengthens the route that we have been working on in the Guatemala Does Not Stop plan”, concluded the president of the Bank of Guatemala, Álvaro González Ricci.
