Agricultural Trade and Investments between Latin America and China: Development, Implications, and Challenges

ABSTRACT

Agriculture has progressively decreased in its proportion of the value of international trade flows, being largely surpassed by extractive industries and, above all, manufacturing. Latin America, and especially South America, however, is one of the regions where the highest percentage of total trade comes from agricultural trade. China has become a preferred destination for Latin American agricultural exports, with China seeing Latin America as a strategic partner in guaranteeing its food security. The objective of this chapter is to analyze the agricultural trade and investment relationship between China and Latin America, starting with an overview of the recent evolution of agricultural export and import flows between China and Latin America and its implications, followed by an analysis of the agricultural investment strategies that China has developed in Latin America and the agricultural trade agreements China has made with Latin American countries, and finishing with an exploration of the effects of COVID-19 on Sino-Latin American agricultural trade and some adaptation strategies that have been implemented. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.