Latin America and Korea: Partners for Sustainable Trade and Investment

The relationship between Korea and Latin American and the Caribbean has come a long way. As the two economies embraced trade with one another in the early 1990s, their connection went from being irrelevant to being a wealth machine. Bilateral trade grew at an impressive annual rate of 11.5%reaching a record high in 2021. The trade boom was followed by US$26 billion in investments by Korean firms in the region since 2000. Despite this meteoric rise, lingering trade barriers remain, and new challenges are emerging from a string of disruptive shocks to the global economyprotectionist backlashes; growing and interrelated sanitary, food, energy, and climate crises; and a fast-moving “digital transformation.” This monograph argues that, despite the challenges, both economies have a set of policies, institutions, and comparative advantages that, if reinforced and leveraged by trade and cooperation, can turn these shocks into bilateral and global opportunities for inclusive and sustainable growth.