Japan Latin America Relations Then and Now - The Japan Model of Economic Engagement: Opportunities for Latin America and The Caribbean

This report has been prepared by Mikio Kuwayama, Managing Director of the Japan Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (JALAC) and Senior Analyst of JALAC’s Institute for Latin American and the Caribbean Studies (ILAC), for the occasion of the Seminar “Japan-Latin America Relations: Then and Now”, cohosted by the Inter-American Dialogue (IAD), September 16-17, 2015, Washington, D.C., USA.

Quality of Latin American and Caribbean industrialization and integration into the global economy

Includes bibliographyDespite an increase in manufacturing activity in Latin America and the Caribbean, the growth in value-added generated by exports of manufactures has been disappointing in most cases. Developing Asia excels not only in the volume of trade in which the manufacturing sector serves as its primary driving force but also in the generation of manufacturing value added (MVA);. Irrespective of growing manufactured exports, the Latin American economies have not experienced the kind of dynamic restructuring of domestic production and export patterns that would allow investment to become an engine of growth. Export dynamism is almost always analyzed in gross export values, not in value-added terms. Value-added tends to be much lower particularly where developing countries are involved in low-skill, lowvalue added assembly stages of global production networks, as in electronics and apparels. The participation in the internationally integrated production systems that produce high-tech goods is not synonymous to the participation in high-technology production processes. Thus, participation in the labor-intensive segments of international production chains neither automatically brings about technology trade and technological upgrading and productivity growth as well as the technological spillovers needed to move up in the production chain. In order to harness trade as a driving force of growth not only for the manufacturing sector but also natural resource-based ones and services, Latin America and the Caribbean should adopt more proactive, forward-looking national policies, concurrent with the rapidly changing world marketplace, under a strong alliance between the public and private sectors

Futures markets as a risk management tool for Latin American commodity exports: some pending issues

Includes bibliograph

Bilateralism and regionalism: re-establishing the primacy of multilateralism a Latin American and Caribbean perspective

Includes bibliographyThe slow advancement of the multilateral trading system has led to a wave of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in Latin America and the Caribbean resulting in a web of bilateral and plurilateral PTAs, with countries both within and outside the region. More than 40 trade agreements now exist in the hemisphere, in addition to other arrangements that are now being negotiated or that will be negotiated before 2006. These agreements and their negotiation processes have generated centripetal and centrifugal forces that tend to unify and divide the regional integration process. While these agreements emerge as an opportunity for signatory countries, they also generate concerns in relation to such aspects as their consistency with multilateral commitments and the broadening and deepening of trade rules and disciplines beyond those being assumed in WTO. The disciplines contemplated in the areas of interest to industrialized countries tend to be WTO-plus, while the issues that affect Latin American and Caribbean signatories are often remitted to the multilateral negotiating forum. Hence, the multilateral level of negotiations cannot be simply replaced by a mix of bilateral and plurilateral negotiations. There is a call for a strong, complementary, mutually reinforcing process among the three (lateral, regional and multilateral) routes to liberalization and regulation. Bilateral agreements between countries or sub-regions could serve as building blocks when and if the precedents they establish are consistent with a comprehensive, balanced WTO that takes due account of the smaller economies' vulnerabilities. This is also true in cases where the commitments made in certain disciplines included in bilateral and sub-regional agreements facilitate the adoption of multilateral rules in the same disciplines. Otherwise, bilateral agreements could impede the construction of a development-oriented WTO, leaving the region with too extensive a web of hub-and-spoke agreements, with high associated costs of administration, transparency and efficiency

Latin America and Asia Pacific trade and investment relations at a time of international financial crisis

Includes BibliographyThe global economic crisis has put an end to a period of worldwide expansion and halted the integration of Latin America and developing Asia with the international economy. Current and expected economic weakness in the advanced economies has led us to look elsewhere for sources of growth. Emerging economies in Asia and Latin America have increased their contributions to world production, finance, and trade in the past decades. In doing so, the two regions have deepened their economic ties with significant implications for the recovery of their respective economies. In this paper we discuss the impact of the crisis on the commercial patterns inside and outside the Forum for East Asia Latin American Cooperation (FEALAC) bloc. We describe the FEALAC economy and identify existing trade and investment structures, and find important structural shortcomings such as a high dependence on inter-industry trade between Asia and Latin America. We argue that this is also an opportunity for greater integration into bi-regional value-added chains and that trade and cooperation between the two regions can be an effective means to counterbalance the adverse effects of the current financial turmoil

Search for a New Partnership in Trade and Investment between Latin America and Asia-Pacific

Aunque de un tiempo a esta parte la cooperación interregional en temas de comercio e inversión entre América Latina y Asia-Pacífico está en la mira de los Gobiernos de ambas regiones, las iniciativas al respecto han sido esporádicas, y sus resultados exiguos. Esta ausencia de resultados palpables no es ajena a las asimetrías económicas entre las dos regiones ni al carácter meramente interindustrial del comercio birregional. El incipiente dinamismo de este comercio previamente a la crisis asiática fue consecuencia del auge económico en Asia Oriental, por un lado, y de la reanudación del crecimiento, las reformas económicas y la integración, por otro. Hoy en día, en medio de la desaceleración económica en Estados Unidos y la parálisis de la economía japonesa, el impulso sostenido de estos factores está en duda. Las actuales relaciones económicas entre las dos regiones no dan la medida del potencial de intercambios e inversiones interregionales en un marco de creciente globalización. Ante el escaso nivel presente de interacción económica, especialmente después de las recientes crisis experimentadas de uno y otro lado, se precisan acciones conjuntas en la esfera económica. Considerando el carácter preliminar y la limitada cobertura nacional de las actuales consultas sobre acuerdos bilaterales de libre comercio, el Foro de Cooperación América Latina - Asia del Este (FOCALAE), de reciente creación, debe abordar los temas de acceso a mercado e integración económica birregional, promoviendo a la vez iniciativas concretas de integración.Although interregional cooperation in trade and investment between Latin America and Asia-Pacific has been on the agendas of countries in both regions for some time, initiatives have been few, with meager results. The lack of tangible results is related to the economic asymmetries between the two regions and a purely inter-industrial nature of bi-regional trade. The incipient drive in bi-regional trade up to the Asian crisis was triggered by the economic boom of East Asia on the one hand, and growth recovery, economic reforms and integration, on the other. Now, coupled with the slowdown of the US economy and the standstill of Japanese economy, the sustained impulse of these factors is uncertain. The present economic relations between the two regions do not reflect the potential for interregional trade and investment that exists in an increasingly globalized world. The current low level of economic interaction, especially in the aftermath of the economic crises experienced in each region in recent years, calls for joint actions in the economic sphere. Given the embryonic stage and limited country coverage of ongoing consultations on bilateral free trade agreements, the recently created Forum for East-Asia Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) should address the issues of market access and bi-regional economic integration, and promote concrete integration initiatives

Regionalización abierta de América Latina para su adecuada inserción internacional

Incluye Bibliografí

Latin America meets China and India: prospects and challenges for trade and investment

Includes bibliograph

América Latina al encuentro de China e India: perspectivas y desafíos en comercio e inversión

Incluye Bibliografí