China sets sights on south America resources

China has set sights on securing long-term supplies of natural resources from Latin America and a share of the region’s emerging markets for its exports. China has taken a long look at regional trends and seems to have decided its interests lie in Latin America thriving and its consumer markts expanding in the coming decade, analysts said, reported UPI. This month China set the ball rolling on $2 billion in loans channeled through the Inter-American Development Bank IADB despite forecasts of at least 9 points less growth in the region this year. The economic growth assessments appear not to be discouraging the Chinese, who have seen their economic involvement in the region soar during the past few years. Between 2000 and 2005 China represented nearly 40 percent of the global growth in world demand for oil, one of Latin America’s leading export commodities aside from agricultural commodities, minerals and other raw materials. Trade between China and Latin America increased 1200 percent, from $10 billion to $130 billion between 2000 and 2009. That value of trade increased to $241.5 billion in 2011, Chinese Trade Ministry data indicated. Only the United States was a larger trading partner. The top five Latin American nations in the trade were Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela. In 2009, 7 percent of Latin America’s exports were to China — mostly raw materials and commodities including copper, iron ore, oil and soybeans. China in turn was the largest export market for Brazil, Chile and Peru and the second largest for Argentina, Costa Rica and Cuba, the data indicated. China hopes to channel its resources toward development finance projects that require additional financing to make them viable. The $2 billion Chinese contribution will be used to co-finance a total of up to $500 million of IADB public sector loans and up to $1.5 billion for loans made by the bank to private sector entities. Co-financing Fund resources will be used to complement the IADB loans, subject to pre-established limits. The funds from China will be available for the next three years for public sector projects and the next six years for non-sovereign guaranteed operations.