"In recent years, China's investment in Latin America has made new progress." Yue yunxia, director of the economic research office of the Latin American institute of the Chinese academy of social sciences, told reporters at a seminar on economic and trade cooperation between China and Latin America recently.

According to the progress report on china-latin America and the Caribbean economic and trade cooperation (2019) released at the seminar, by the end of 2018, more than 2,500 Chinese companies had established operations in 32 Latin American economies, with an investment stock of us $406.8 billion, accounting for 20.5% of China's ofdi stock. In the first half of 2019, Chinese companies signed $6.7 billion in new contracts in Latin America, up more than 30 percent year on year. Among them, business increment mainly appears in Brazil and Peru, transportation and new energy are the main sources of new business.

"In terms of china-latin America economic cooperation, Latin America has become the third largest market for China's overseas economic cooperation." Yueyunxia told China trade news that in 2019, the bilateral cooperation mechanism between China and Latin American countries will gradually cover the whole Latin American region, and the status of Latin America as the co-built partner of China's "One Belt And One Road" will become clearer. Policy communication has laid a foundation for the optimization of economic and trade cooperation between China and Latin America.

In recent years, trade and investment liberalization and facilitation in China and Latin America have been greatly enhanced. First, the development of free trade zones was accelerated. The fta upgrade agreement between China and Chile officially came into effect on March 1 this year, the fta upgrade negotiation with Peru is currently under way, and the fta implementation with costa rica is smooth. Second, trade and investment promotion platform prominent role. Latin American countries have taken an active part in the China international import expo. More and more products with Latin American advantages and characteristics have entered the Chinese market. Third, the inter-governmental economic and trade cooperation mechanism has been constantly improved.

"Since the One Belt And One Road initiative was launched in 2013, china-latin America relations have come a long way. Building a china-latin America community of Shared future is changing from an idea to an action." Yue yunxia said that the early development of china-latin America economic and trade cooperation is based on the natural and static complementarity of the economic structures of both sides, while the current development of the two economies creates the possibility of realizing dynamic complementarity. China's economic transformation focuses on the supply-side structural reform, providing Latin America with commodity and capital opportunities. Latin America's economic transformation is characterized by demand-driven investment in "hardware" such as energy and roads, "software" such as communications and the Internet, and industrial economic upgrading, providing market opportunities for China.

"In recent years, Chilean cherries, Chilean and Peruvian blueberries, and Uruguayan beef have all become popular among the Chinese people. This is one of the fruits of China's diversification of its trade with Latin America." In YueYunXia view, the growth of trade cooperation with periodic characteristics, the rapid growth of the early, just as China's "accession" close to the time, Latin America's commodities, industrial raw materials, oil, metals and minerals such as copper, are the main source of growth, and China for food, especially food also has a lot of demand. In terms of the future development of China as a demographic and economic power, commodities remain a focus of our needs. In addition, with the diversification of Chinese people's consumption demand, and Latin America's own focus on the development of specialty products, such as high-value coffee, Uruguayan beef and other meat products, these characteristics of agricultural products, there is relatively large room for growth.

Infrastructure investment and construction are the areas with the greatest growth potential in china-latin America economic and trade cooperation. At present, Latin America and the Caribbean has become the second largest destination for China's overseas investment and the third largest market for China's overseas project contracting business.

Yueyunxia said that high-quality construction of "One Belt And One Road" is inseparable from in-depth cooperation in infrastructure construction. Two of China's major investments in Latin America are in Argentina, the belgrano freight rail project and the Santa cruz river electric-warfare financing project. Among them, the belgrano freight railway renovation project, Chinese investment accounted for as much as 85%, which is a great benefit to Argentina's infrastructure construction.

"The lack of infrastructure and the deficit of funds for infrastructure construction are one of the important reasons hindering the development of Latin American countries. Therefore, deepening infrastructure cooperation is the top priority for china-latin America cooperation." Yao baoyu, managing director of the china-latin America cooperation fund, said Latin American countries offer opportunities for China to move into overseas markets and the economies of China and Latin American countries are highly complementary. From a revenue perspective, infrastructure construction and energy bulk trading have become important investment directions for Chinese enterprises to go global.