He said, this is the real development crisis facing Latin America and the Caribbean: the region has failed miserably to promote technological sophistication, economic sophistication and diversification of production and exports, which has caused all countries to fall into the middle-income trap.

As a result, none has even approached the US$20,000 per capita income threshold.

There is a whole list of things that have to be right: investment climate, infrastructure, education, macroeconomic balances, good governance.

The official said that one solution could be cluster initiative policies or cluster-based policies, which can be built from the bottom up, even if some of the factors on the competitiveness list are not 100% correct.

He indicated that clusters are specific forms of public-private partnerships where a governance space is created in which all relevant actors collaborate to promote competitiveness, job creation, innovation, skills, financing and the removal of obstacles to the growth of the cluster, sector or agglomeration.

The most successful clusters are those led by the private sector, with close cooperation of government agencies and educational and vocational training institutions.

Translated by: A.M