Converge or DE-Globalization - Second comment- Algunas conclusiones estratégicas del INTAL -GLO-CAL- sobre LAC y China

We reccommend, dear reader, that you first have a look at the previous comment on this subject. We believe it is worth reading indeed.

Mauricio López Dardaine

Convergence or De-Globalization
Gustavo Beliz

Director, Institute for the Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean (INTAL) Inter-Americn Development Bank - II

 ... The region [LAC] urgently needs to keep up with the pace of global innovation and to establish technology exchanges and knowledge transfer that help to avoid technological deglobalization while looking ahead to the impact of new technologies on its production structure and trade. Cooperation that closes the technology gap between the two regions [LAC and China] can be achieved through mutually beneficial agreements. To the risk of technological deglobalization is added other forces pointing in the same direction, such as currency wars or the oligopolistic concentration of production techniques. Against this backdrop, the question that runs through this issue of integration & trade [from where this leading article is taken]is what the region’s stance should be toward the new situation in China?

We put an emphasis on the new set of problems with the aim of setting a benchmark for the stances to be adopted by LAC toward these three trends... 

... Throughout these pages, it will become clear that the phase of easy automatic complementarity (2000-2008) and the impasse that followed the 2009-2014 crisis must find a stage of overcoming in intelligent convergence. The days of passive adjustment are over and a change of strategy that goes hand in hand with vigorous initiatives is urgently needed. The partnership that was once natural must now be sought together with public active integration policies. The nobel Prize in economics, Edmund Phelps, describes it perfectly in the piece that opens this issue: the lowest fruits on the tree have already been harvested and more effort will now be needed to achieve the same. 

This new period is quite different to the previous one and therefore requires a different approach. Macroeconomic and financial volatility, low commodity prices, and lower rates of growth are just some of the causes that weaken the merely commercial connection between China and LAC. 

Source: Integration & Trade - No. 40 - June 2016

Queremos traerles aquí algunas de las conclusiones que fueron surgiendo a lo largo del encuentro del INTAL realizado en Buenos Aires el 30 de junio de 2016:

·        China, al entrar a esta nueva etapa tiene planes estratégicos que llegan al año 2050

·        América Latina no hace planes de largo plazo, sino de manera esporádica y sin continuidad

·        China invierte fuertemente en investigación y desarrollo en tecnología de punta

·        La brecha tecnológica entre China y América Latina llevará inexorablemente a una mayor dependencia

·        China invierte seriamente en educación en centros de excelencia de los países más avanzados. Sus estudiantes se concentran en profundizar sus conocimientos de matemática, física, química, computación, robótica

·        Los pocos estudiantes de nuestra región que asisten a esos centros estudian disciplinas muy alejadas de las llamadas ciencias “duras”

Animándonos a resumir lo que más se recalcó:

·        La Educación es clave

·        El planificar a mediano y largo plazo es vital

·        La coordinación entre nuestros países es imprescindible para exportar y a la vez cerrar la brecha tecnológica

·        Y todo ello empieza por una toma de conciencia pública y privada

·        China avanza con pasos de gigante, aunque haya reducido la velocidad de sus zancadas

·        Nosotros nos quedamos sin tiempo y aún enroscados en el día a día

¡Argentinos: a las cosas!, como nos arengaba Ortega.

Cordialmente,

Mauricio López Dardaine