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This paper explores China's competitive threat to Latin America in trade in manufactured goods. The direct threat to exports to third country markets appears small: Latin America and the Caribbean's (LAC's) trade structure is largely complementary to that of China. In bilateral trade, several LAC countries are increasing primary and resource-based exports to China. However, the pattern of trade, with LAC .specializing increasingly in resource-based products and China in manufactured goods, seems worrying. Given cumulative capability building. China's success in increasingly technology-based products with strong learning externalities can place it on a higher growth path them specialization in "simpler" goods, as in LAC. China may thus affect LAC's technological upgrading in exports and industrial production. The issue is not so much current competition as the "spaces" open for LAC in the emerging technology-based world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the competitiveness of Mexican exports in light of China's accession to the World Trade Organization. A summary of S. Lall and J. Weiss's findings on the same subject matter is presented. Data used in the study is described. Results show that Chinese goods penetration in global markets may have a significant impact on Mexico.

In recent years concerns have been raised over the impact of Chinese competition on Latin American exports, particularly those from Mexico. This article shows that Brazilian manufactured exports too have been negatively affected, and that this has been reflected in the “primarization” of Brazilian exports and a declining share in the import markets of its major customers. A variety of different indicators were used to analyse the extent to which Brazilian exports have faced competition from China. Constant Market Share analysis was then applied to estimate the quantitative significance of Chinese competition for Brazilian exports. This shows that Brazil has lost markets to China in the USA, in the EU and in its major Latin American markets, particularly since 2004. This has occurred not only in low-technology products but also increasingly in high-technology products, and Brazil has not been able to compensate for losses to China through increasing exports of more sophisticated products. It was also found that Chinese competition intensified in the Latin American market following the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]