Fear of China: Is There a Future for Manufacturing in Latin America?

Mauricio Moreira

No 3434, IDB Publications (Working Papers) from Inter-American Development Bank

Abstract: China's emergence has raised pointed questions about the future of manufacturing in Latin America. Once saw as its economic future, the viability of this activity in the region has long been challenged by traditional trade theory and, in practical terms, by at least three generations of Asian Tigers. China and its "unlimited supply of labor", rapid productivity growth, scale, and extremely interventionist state has brought the practical challenge to unprecedented levels. This paper, using mainly descriptive production and trade statistics, looks at the nature of this challenge and its implications. It begins by dealing with a central issue: Does manufacturing still matter for Latin America's development? It then moves on to examine the scope and nature of the Chinese challenge. It shows that endowments, productivity, scale and the government role, all work together to make China a formidable competitor. The paper concludes by discussing, in general terms, the (difficult) policy options available. This presentation presented at Latin America/Caribbean and Asia/Pacific Economics and Business Association (LAEBA)'s 1st Annual Meeting held in Beijing, China on December 3rd-4th, 2004.

Keywords: manufacturing; trade agreements; China; Latin America; labor force; industrial productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-12
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english ... in-Latin-America.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Fear of China: Is There a Future for Manufacturing in Latin America? (2007)
Working Paper: Fear of China: is there a future for manufacturing in Latin America ? (2006)
Working Paper: Fear of China: Is there a future for manufacturing in Latin America? (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:idb:brikps:3434

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IDB Publications (Working Papers) from Inter-American Development Bank Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Felipe Herrera Library ().