China's trade with Latin America set to outpace EU within two years

Latin America's trade with China will surpass that of the continent with Europe in two years, according to a United Nations study, with some predicting it will eventually eclipse its trade with the United States.

Chinese investment in the continent's energy and infrastructure sectors is rising rapidly, with more than US$550 billion of infrastructure projects in the market.

A study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean predicts China will surpass the European Union as Latin America's second-largest trading partner in 2016. Some estimates forecast that in 15 years, China will overtake the US to become Latin America's largest trade partner, according to an article by Peter Hakim and Margaret Myers in China Policy Review, a magazine of the State Council.

Trade between China and Latin America grew 8 per cent to US$255.5 billion in 2012, faster than the 6.2 per cent growth of the continent's trade with the US, according to the International Monetary Fund.

China is already the biggest trading partner of Brazil, Chile and Peru. Its trade with Brazil grew 10 per cent last year to US$83.3 billion, according to the Brazilian Ministry of Commerce.

China has been Mexico's second-largest trading partner, behind the US, since 2003. From 2002 to 2012, trade between China and Mexico, the second-largest South American economy, rose 823 per cent, said Alicia Buenrostro Massieu, Mexico's consul general to Hong Kong.