Interpreting Chinese Finance to LAC
Despite slowing growth on both sides of the Pacific, China’s policy bank finance to Latin America reached $30 billion in 2015.
Despite slowing growth on both sides of the Pacific, China’s policy bank finance to Latin America reached $30 billion in 2015.
Chinese-built infrastructure can indeed be a boon for Latin America, but making this happen will require no shortage of strategic thinking on the part of policymakers.
Latin American governments are increasingly looking to China to address the region’s glaring infrastructure deficit. However, if history is any indication, China’s commitment to Latin American infrastructure development is unlikely to result in a slew of mega-projects in the coming years.
On November 14th, the Inter-American Dialogue convened a panel of experts to discuss current trends and prospects of Chinese infrastructure development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The event was moderated by Margaret Myers, director of the Inter-American Dialogue’s Asia & Latin America Program.
China’s interest in Latin America has cooled — and that trend will continue.
The emergence of China as a new economic partner presents trade offs for Amazon basin countries. Without special care to avoid and minimize ecological and social impacts, the costs of development run the risk of outweighing its gains.
Again this year, China’s policy banks—China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China (Eximbank)—issued no new finance to Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) governments or state-run companies, according to findings from the Inter-American Dialogue’s Asia and Latin America Program and the Boston University Global Development Policy Center (GDP).
China’s development finance institutions demonstrated renewed interest in lending to LAC in 2022, issuing US$813 million in loans to three LAC governments or state institutions.