WTO Deputy Director-General (2021-present). Minister of Foreign Trade, Costa Rica (2010-2014). Global expert on trade, investment and economic development, with managerial experience in international organizations.
Nonresident senior fellow and creator of Trade Winds, Peterson Institute for International Economics (on leave for public service). Senior advisor, BCG (2019-21). Senior director of the Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice, World Bank (2014-17). Senior consultant on trade and investment, Inter-American Development Bank (2009-10). Director Agricultural Division (WTO, 2006-09). Other positions include: director general, CINDE (Costa Rica investment promotion agency); chief trade negotiator, Costa Rica; viceminister of foreign trade, Costa Rica. Has written extensively and presented in over 80 countries across the world.
For developing countries, especially the poorest among them, trade—both imports and exports—is a powerful, cost-effective tool to mitigate the potentially devastating effects of COVID-19....
The global policy outlook for trade and investment has darkened over the past year. Trade conflict is proliferating while structural challenges have deepened. Business sentiment is on the...
Competition to lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution is fierce. Governments and firms across the globe are engaging in legitimate - and illegitimate - acts to get a foothold in a particul...
Some years ago, the distinguished economist Richard Baldwin said: “Regional trade liberalisation sweeps the globe like wildfire”. He was right. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) increa...
This week, myself and colleagues from the World Bank Group will participate in the World Trade Organization’s Sixth Global Review of Aid-for-Trade. The bi-annual meetings, held at WTO hea...
En todo el mundo, los servicios enfrentan desafíos sin precedentes que nacen de las demandas de un mercado que está cambiando rápidamente. Deben adaptarse a nuevos avances tecnológicos co...
En la última parte del siglo XX, la integración comercial ayudó a impulsar el crecimiento económico en los países avanzados y en desarrollo, sacando a millones de personas de la pobreza.
In the latter part of the 20th century, trade integration helped drive economic growth in advanced and developing countries, lifting millions out of poverty.
In the ongoing debate about the benefits of trade, we must not lose sight of a vital fact. Trade and global integration have raised incomes across the world, while dramatically cutting po...
Increasing economic prosperity for developing countries is related not only to rising trade, but also – and more important – to transforming the traditional composition of what they produ...
In this interview with Anabel Gonzalez, the senior director for the World Bank Group’s Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice offers her views on mega-regional trade agreements, the ...
The Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential race in the United States have shown, among other things, that public distrust of global integration is on the rise. That ...
