Energy Advisor

Margaret Myers, director of the Asia & Latin America Program at the Inter-American Dialogue: “Chief among the aims of China’s investments in Latin America and the Caribbean is promoting engagement with ‘new infrastructure’ sectors, which China believes will boost domestic economic growth and help it escape the middle-income trap. As a result, much of China’s economic engagement has focused on trade and investment in high-tech or other innovation-based industries and on exporting its excess capacity. This includes persistent excesses in the state-run steel sector, which have motivated key rail and other infrastructure projects across the globe. China also faces excess capacity in its construction sector and has therefore sought new investment opportunities, including and especially in the Global South, given the infrastructure needs in these regions and increasingly limited investment opportunities at home. Many of these companies have either…”