Chinese Competition and Brazilian Exports of Manufactures

Abstract

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.