Economic Relations between Ecuador and Spain (EUR) appears in Latin American Economic Outlook 2010.

Poverty in Ecuador was 25.7% in 2022, above the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) average of 24.1%. Extreme poverty fell from 7.5% in 2016 to 6.9% in 2022, below the LAC average (8.3%). The Gini index was 45.8 in 2021, remaining above the LAC average (44.8). Regarding investment and production transformation indicators, total investment in Ecuador decreased from 25.1% of GDP in 2016 to 21.3% in 2022. In the same period, total regional investment increased on average from 20.8% to 21.3%. Notably, in parallel, private investment rose sharply, from 13.1% of GDP to 17.8%, rising above the LAC average (15.8% in 2019). Ecuador’s labour productivity, compared to output per employed person in the United States, decreased from 20.5% in 2016 to 18.2% in 2023, falling further below the LAC average of 27.1% in 2023. The share of exports of high-tech products in total exported manufactured goods was 4.8% in 2021, well below the LAC average (7.2%). Positive perceptions of foreign direct investment (FDI), which declined across the LAC region, dropped sharply in Ecuador, from 83.9% in 2016 to 48.3% in 2020. The country’s tax revenue decreased slightly, from 19.9% of GDP in 2016 to 19.4% in 2021 (below 21.5% as the LAC average). Environment-related tax revenues remained low and almost unchanged, at 0.4% of GDP in 2016 and 0.3% in 2021.

Ecuador’s legal framework implementing the AEOI Standard is not in place in accordance with the requirements of the AEOI Terms of Reference. While Ecuador’s international legal framework to exchange the information with all of Ecuador’s Interested Appropriate Partners (CR2) is consistent with the requirements, Ecuador’s domestic legislative framework requiring Reporting Financial Institutions to conduct the due diligence and reporting procedures (CR1) has significant deficiencies in areas that are fundamental to the proper functioning of the AEOI Standard. More specifically, deficiencies have been identified in Ecuador’s enforcement framework and in relation to the scope of Financial Accounts.

Poverty in Ecuador increased from 24.3% in 2016 to 30.6% in 2020, above the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) average of 26.3%, partly owing to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Extreme poverty increased in that period from 7.5% to 10.8% and remains above the LAC average (8.7%). The Gini index increased from 45.0 in 2016 to 47.3 in 2020, close to the LAC average (45.3). Regarding environmental indicators, in 2019, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per capita were 4.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (t CO2e), lower than the averages for LAC (6.3) and countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (9.1). That year, the share of the population exposed to air pollution levels that pose risks to human health (PM2.5 at more than 10 µg/m3) was 100%, higher than 95.4% for LAC and 61.0% for the OECD. The marine protected area of Ecuador accounted for 13.3% of its territorial waters in 2021, compared to 7.3% for LAC and 18.6% for the OECD. In 2022, Ecuador created Hermandad, a new 60 000 km2 marine protected area, thereby increasing the national marine protected area to 19.2% of territorial waters. On the fiscal side, environmentally related tax revenue was 0.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020, below LAC (1.0%) and OECD averages (2.1%). Total tax revenues as a percentage of GDP (19.1%) remain lower than the averages for LAC (21.9%) and the OECD (33.5%).

The infrastructure levy is the only systematically used land value capture instrument in Ecuador (). It has a longstanding tradition and works well. The capital city, Quito, and two other major cities, Cuenca and Guayaquil, concentrate the most relevant experience. The 2016 Organic Law of Spatial Planning, Land Use and Management (LOOTUGS) provides a national legal framework for urban planning and land management that includes land value capture concepts and instruments that were new to the majority of local governments. However, implementation of the LOOTUGS has been slow. Only Quito and Cuenca have started to institutionalise and implement land value capture instruments beyond the infrastructure levy. The main obstacles are the lack of political will to charge landowners and developers, as well as smaller local governments’ lack of administrative capacity. Less than 20 large or intermediate cities may have sufficient urban planning and land management capacity to use land value capture instruments beyond the infrastructure levy. Most other cities are small and do not have the technical, political and financial capacity to exercise their urban planning and management competencies.

Ecuador’s economy has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by more than 7%, compared to a year earlier. In 2020, based on the latest international comparable estimations the poverty rate reached 33.5%, almost ten percentage points higher than in 2019. The extreme poverty rate was 12.8%, more than five percentage points higher than a year earlier. These rates are among the highest in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, where average poverty and extreme poverty rates were 30.9% and 10.0%, respectively, in 2020. Between March 2020 and May 2021, schools were fully closed for 39 weeks, more than the averages in LAC (26 weeks) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (15 weeks). Given the overall low rate of Internet use (54.1%), school closures had a negative impact on both children’s education and families due to expanded care responsibility. Ecuador entered the pandemic with increasing public expenditures on health. In the last decade, they increased by 1.2 percentage points of GDP and had reached 8.3% of GDP before the crisis. This figure is higher than in LAC (6.8%) but lower than in the OECD (8.8%). However, people’s perceptions of the quality of health services are negative. In 2020, just 44.3% of people declared being satisfied with health care, compared to 48.2% in LAC and 70.7% in the OECD. In 2020, 86.0% of citizens thought that the government was corrupt. This proportion is high, both compared to LAC (72.4%) and the OECD (58.8%).

In the last decade, Ecuador has made efforts to enhance digital access and use for all. The share of Internet users as well as active mobile broadband and fixed broadband subscriptions have considerably increased in during this period. In particular, active mobile broadband subscriptions (per 100 people) increased from 8.8 in 2008 to 54.7 in 2018 but remained below the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) average (73.5) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average (103.6). Perceived e-commerce safety and trust in online privacy are above LAC and OECD averages.

Ecuador has made progress in some development indicators in the past decades. In particular, the country has made improvements in the net secondary enrolment rate (87.2%), which is now on the same level as Chile (87.1%), and above the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) average of 74.4%. Life expectancy at birth improved from 69 to 76.3 years between 1990-2016. The infant mortality rate is 12.5 per 1 000 live births, slightly below the LAC average of 14.7. The homicide rate, at 6.5 per 100 000 inhabitants, is more than three times lower than the LAC average of 21.9.

The country profile includes data on the income taxes paid by workers, their social security contributions, the family benefits they receive in the form of cash transfers as well as the social security contributions and payroll taxes paid by the employers. Results reported include the average and marginal tax burdens for eight different family types.It also describes the personal income tax systems, all compulsory social security contribution schemes and universal cash transfers as well as recent changes in the tax/benefit system.

The pension system is a defined-benefit system based on earnings. There is also a non-contributory system for the elderly in need.

The Constitution of Ecuador upholds the principle of gender equality and guarantees human rights. It prohibits any form of sexual discrimination without exception and provides for equal opportunity for men and women in access to productive resources and in marriage.

This chapter provides a detailed assessment of the current state of data collection and availability, in terms of quality and completeness, at the level of the national education system in Ecuador. It shows that Ecuador is in a very good position to respond to the system-level questionnaire: each data table or worksheet in the questionnaire has an institution assigned to it to collect and/or manage the requested information; and metadata are consistently based on well-known legislation (national law or administrative norms) while data are regularly based on advanced information systems. Challenges include statistics coverage of educational expenditure and aligning data on enrolment with the fiscal year, especially as the country has two different school cycles.