Economic relations between Latin America and the high-performing Asian developing economies

This study examines “South-South” economic relations in the context of regionalism. It covers three Latin American countries and eight high-performing Asian developing economics. Although the level of trade and investment between these two groups is currently very low, trade is growing fast and there are indications that the potential for continued growth exists. Although regionalism is advancing in both these parts of the world, it has so far not affected the ties between the two groups of countries, and in fact inter-regional trade growth has recently been exceeding intra-regional growth in the case of most of the countries covered by this study. In the short term, it would appear that economic relations between these Latin American and Asian countries will depend largely on whether a “second generation” of reforms in Latin America will sustain the gains from prior reforms.