Latin America and the Caribbean
Since 2010, China has been the most important export market for South America, and the second for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) as a whole. It is also among the top sources of foreign direct investment and sovereign finance. The impact of this new partner can be traced in a South American boom of agricultural and minerals commodities, as well as infrastructure construction throughout the LAC region.
This research program examines China’s impacts on LAC’s regional economies, environmental management and human development. In partnership with the Inter-American Dialogue, GCI researchers created the China-Latin America Finance Database to track loans from China’s two global policy banks, the China Development Bank and China Export-Import Bank, to LAC governments and state-owned enterprises. Other research products, including the annual China-Latin America Bulletin and working papers, explore the most important economic flows between these two regions, and the impact of this new economic partnership on LAC’s sustainable and inclusive infrastructure and investment, economic diversification and environmental governance.
Research Highlights
Latest News and Publications
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GDP Center Round-Up: Fall 2022 Global China Research Colloquium
December 21, 2022By Christina Duran From post-pandemic industrialization to COVID-19 and southern African sovereign debt, researchers from around the world explored a variety of topics as part of the Fall 2022 Global China Initiative Research Colloquium over the past four months. The webinar... [ More ]
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Webinar Summary – The ‘China Boom’ in the Amazon Basin: Social and Environmental Regulation amid a Commodity Supercycle
October 24, 2022By Yudong (Nathan) Liu On Tuesday, October 11, 2022, the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center hosted a webinar discussion with Paulo Esteves, Coordinator of the Socio-Environmental Platform and the Global South Unit for Mediation at the BRICS Policy Center... [ More ]
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Raising the Standard: Environment and Social Regulations and Courting Chinese Investment in the Amazon Basin
October 10, 2022By Yudong (Nathan) Liu Through the first two decades of this century, countries in the Amazon basin have developed strategies and institutions for sustainable development, in certain instances extending rights to ‘nature’ itself through legislation and changes to national constitutions. Whether... [ More ]
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A Shifting Course: Environmental and Social Governance During and After the “China Boom” in the Amazon Basin
October 10, 2022In the first decade of the 21st century, China’s rapid urbanization and investment-led growth model brought skyrocketing demand for raw commodities and an ensuing investment wave in Amazon basin countries. In the wake of this “China boom,” national governments in... [ More ]
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Examining the “Chinese Miracle”: Q&A with Jorge Heine
September 11, 2022By Liaoguo Chen How did China, the former Middle Kingdom, the most populous country and the second largest economy in the world, reach its current standing? Will this be, as some say, the century of Asia and, to a large extent, [ More ]
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GDP Center Round-Up: Spring 2022 Global China Research Colloquium
May 31, 2022By Bridgette Lang The Spring 2022 Global China Research Colloquium invited leading scholars to virtually present their latest research on topics spanning China's application of industrial policy, debt-for-nature swaps with Ecuador, simulating the impacts of China's clean energy transition abroad and... [ More ]
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Trends in Trade and Investment: China and Latin America and the Caribbean in 2021
March 28, 2022By Zara C. Albright In 2021, for the second year in a row, China and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) agreed to no new official financing commitments from the China Development Bank (CDB) or the Export-Import Bank of China (CHEXIM). Rather, [ More ]
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China-Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Bulletin, 2022 Edition
March 24, 2022In 2021, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) continued to face challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic strains. After a 7 percent contraction in 2020, the region’s GDP growth rebounded to 6.2 percent in 2021, according to... [ More ]
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Webinar Summary: Financing Tropical Conservation – Debt-for-Nature Proposals for Ecuador and China
February 24, 2022By Rebecca Ray As part of the Spring 2022 Global China Research Colloquium, Carlos Larrea, Professor of Social Science at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolivar in Ecuador, shared his vision for a debt-for-nature swap between Ecuador and China, wherein portions of... [ More ]