According to the Panama Star website, since 2000, China’s bilateral trade with the region has surged from just over $14 billion to $50 billion in 2022, an astonishing 35-fold growth that has made China the region’s second largest trading partner over the years.

The United Nations Latin American and Caribbean Economic Commission (UNECE) recently released its Annual Report on Latin America and the Caribbean International Trade Outlook 2023, which points out that Latin America and the Caribbean region are increasingly important in China’s foreign trade and even have exceeded the U.S. share of China’s total imports.

The report examines the complex trade situation that the region will face in 2023 in the context of weak global demand, falling raw material prices and the close links between trade and geopolitics.

The report detailed that trade between Latin America and the Caribbean region and China has a marked cross-industrial structure.In 2022, 95% of Latin America and the Caribbean exports are raw materials and natural resources-based products, while 88% of goods from China are low, medium and high-tech products.

There are three countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that have entered into free trade agreements with China for more than a decade, including Chile (in force since 2006), Peru (in force since 2010) and Costa Rica (in force since 2011). Recently, the LAGA Committee found that the region’s interest in deepening trade relations with China by signing such agreements has grown again. For example, Ecuador and Nicaragua signed free trade agreements with China in 2023, respectively, and Honduras also began negotiations on a free trade agreement with China in July 2023.

The report emphasizes that Latvian-Chinese trade exchanges have shown extraordinary vitality, and the significant growth of China’s economy, especially between 2000 and 2011, has driven a super-cycle of high raw material prices, benefiting most regions of Latin America and the Caribbean.

As China’s urbanization and the expansion of the middle class and the growing demand for safe, diversified and high-quality foods, the Latin American and Caribbean region has huge opportunities due to its rich natural and water resources, the region has the comparative advantage necessary to supply China with nutritional, safe and high-quality food.