Latin America-China trade surpasses goals
Posted on Thu, Feb. 14, 2008
BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com
Wow! Trade between China and Latin America has exceeded the most optimistic forecasts, surpassing in 2007 the levels that Chinese officials had projected for 2010.
According to new Chinese government data, commerce between China and Latin America reached $102.6 billion in 2007. When Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Latin America four years ago, he made big headlines by saying that his country would try to increase trade with the region to $100 billion by 2010.
''This is very significant,'' said Evan Ellis, author of a forthcoming book on China-Latin American relations who alerted me to the new trade figures that have gone largely unnoticed since China's Commerce Ministry released its 2007 year-end figures Feb. 4.
But there was little change in the products that China traded with Latin America: China continues to buy mostly commodities such as copper, soybeans, iron ore and fish meal from Latin America, while it is selling increasingly sophisticated goods to the region...
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