China could overtake the EU in 2014 as the second partner of Latin America

China may overtake the European Union and second largest trading partner in Latin America and the Caribbean since 2014, said today in Santiago, the executive secretary of ECLAC, the Mexican Alicia Bárcena.

Although the EU remains the largest partner after the United States, we see that this trend will continue to lose this position against China, and this we see coming from 2014 or 2015, Barcena said.

This decline is reflected in that in 1990, the European bloc was the target of 25% of exports from the region and the origin of 20% of its imports, while their share in 2009 was reduced to 14% in both directions .

The representative of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) made these reflections during a seminar on relations between the two regions, attended by EU ambassadors from Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Peru.

According Bárcena, Latin America remains also a junior partner to the EU because it represents only 2% of total trade in it.

However, 63.8% of foreign trade is Twenty-seven, and only 18.6% seen with the rest of the world.

This trade in goods is also marked by a profound asymmetry, as Latin America and the Caribbean imported from the European Union on all manufactured goods, while exports are concentrated in a few primary products.

After the crisis of 2008, trade with the European bloc recovered more slowly than trade with other regions, and in 2010, few Latin American countries like Bolivia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay had regained pre-export level.

In contrast, between 2000 and 2010, the EU emerged as the primary source of foreign direct investment in Latin America.

Spain also remains the largest European investor country, accumulating 136.233 million euros invested in the last twenty years, as revealed by Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU External Relations , also present at this event.

Austrian politics championed the virtues of European investment in Latin America, a continent which, he noted, owns 25% of the worlds fertile land, 33% of drinking water and large amounts of raw materials.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner will chair the Foundation European Union-Latin America and Caribbean (EU-LAC), which will shortly be established to strengthen ties between the two regions and create a stronger cooperation in various fields of interest.

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