Trade patterns in China-Latin America trade for 1999-05
21 Feb '07
4 min read
• Consumer goods: China's other dominant exports — cheap electronic and textile consumer goods— have also recently surged on Latin American markets, and have helped meet growing demand from an increasingly prosperous Latin American consumer base.
Implications:
China and Latin America will likely become more economically integrated in years to come. First, the rapid acceleration of China-Latin America trade is broadly reflective of China's emergence as a dominant actor in global trade, and of Latin America's ability to adapt and take advantage of China's economic expansion.
Second, China-Latin American trade is mostly complementary in nature, based on the two sides' contrasting resource endowments. While there are exceptions to this —most notably in Mexico and Panama where competition from China has challenged labor-intensive, export-oriented textile industries— basic Heckscher-Ohlin principles nevertheless generally prevail. Third, the volume of bilateral trade remains relatively small thus far, leaving considerable room for growth. Finally, both China and Latin America represent growing economies that are likely to exhibit sustained demand for the products that currently dominate bilateral trade.
Many actors stand to benefit from deeper bilateral economic integration, including sellers of Latin American raw materials, certain Latin American telecommunication and computer manufacturers, Latin American and Chinese consumers, and Chinese primary goods importers. Latin America's disproportionate increase in exports, however, suggests that its economies may be more susceptible to risks associated with deeper bilateral economic integration.
20240830145952.gif)
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "UBM China (Shanghai)")
-Ltd..jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Thermore (Far East) Ltd.")
