What is productive transformation?

It is like the game of Scrabble. The development process consists in accumulating more letters to create more words with more letters, as long as possible, to assign more value to them. That is how Ricardo Hausmann, Harvard professor, sees productive transformation. "The problem of competitiveness is that countries usually have few letters, and that limits them to write little and short". 

Following the analogy, he explains that accumulating is complicated as nobody wants to accumulate for an industry that does not exist. At the same time, if the enterprise or industry does not exist, there are accumulated capacities. Latin America is at a disadvantage to carry out a productive transformation. The challenge is to adopt technology to get close to the productive frontier. 

Another important challenge is education for competitiveness and productivity, as well as creating a business environment in the region, that is, spaces to develop the subject, where there is legal security and also entrepreneurial exchange. Infrastructure is also an important factor. 

Environmental sustainability must be implicit in productive transformation, Enterprises must integrate the financial, social, and cultural aspects with sustainability and adaptation to climate change. Having a competitive enterprise is compatible with a sustainable enterprise. Here lies the heart of productive transformation.