Abstract:
The Pacific Alliance was created as an effort to integrate its members into global supply chains and connect them to the world’s fastest-growing economies in East Asia. All four participating countries—Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru—are known for their confessed openness to free trade and investment liberalization.

Against the backdrop of the unremarkable performance of the region’s previous initiatives for cooperation and regional integration much depends on external recognition and engagement. Given the Alliance’s emphasis on trade, finance, and the geographic region of the Asia-Pacific, the recognition most vital to success is that of the People’s Republic of China: while Japan and South Korea play a dynamic role as well, particularly in the manufacturing sector, China is by far the largest and fastest-growing catalyst for Latin America’s trade, loans, and investment.

China has evidenced its eagerness to engage the Latin American region in many ways, most notably through its two policy papers in 2008 and 2016 a stream of loans and investment initiatives, and top leadership visits to the region on an annual basis. It has also thrown its weight behind CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, often described as a regional grouping that excludes Canada and the United States. But does the Alliance command a special “sweet spot” in China’s strategy for Latin America? Is Beijing responding as eagerly to the Alliance’s initiatives as some news reports suggest?
A series of interviews with academics, policy advisors, and executives in China and a review of Chinese print and online media and journal articles suggest that Beijing and China’s business community observe the Alliance with polite interest but see limited benefits for either side.

Resumen: No disponible

Author: Benjamin Creutzfeldt
Institutional Author: Wilson Center, Latin American Program
Full document: 2018, Creutzfeldt, China Engagement with regional Actors The Pacific Alliance

Author: Pío García
Abstract: not provided
Full document: 2011, García, La Importancia de FOCALAE para Colombia

Summary:
In April 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that annual growth in Latin America and the Caribbean would contract for a second straight year, the worst performance since the debt crisis of the early 1980s. Yet regional averages, dragged down by recession in Brazil and sharp economic decline in Venezuela, tell only part of the story. The countries of the Pacific Alliance—Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru—are not the region’s top performers in terms of GDP growth (that distinction falls to Panama and the Dominican Republic). But according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), their average annual growth rate between 2014 and 2016 is expected to total 2.6 percent, more than double the regional average. Together, the four Pacific Alliance (PA) countries constitute almost 40 percent of the regional economy but their collective exports are 55 percent of the region’s total.

The framework accord creating the Pacific Alliance was signed in 2012, aimed at increasing “the free circulation of goods, services, capital, and people,” while also providing a unified platform for deeper integration with the Asia-Pacific region. A review of trade data from 2012 to 2014 suggests that progress toward these goals has been uneven.

Trade has almost uniformly and across multiple sectors decreased within the PA since 2013. Pacific Alliance countries have to a large extent continued to trade more substantially with their longstanding trading partners in large outside markets such as the United States and Europe. Overall, however, and at a time of economic slowdown throughout Latin America, the reductions in trade between and among Pacific Alliance countries in 2013 and 2014 have been smaller than the reductions in each country’s bilateral trade with Argentina and Brazil, South America’s two largest markets. This points to the greater stability of trade within the Pacific Alliance.

 …[T]he relatively stronger performance of Pacific Alliance members vis-à-vis several Asian countries during a period of recessionary shocks indicates that Alliance members are—despite obstacles—making headway in bolstering trade relations with Asian partners, a key goal of Pacific Alliance integration.

Resumen:
No disponible

Authors: Meghan Greene and Cynthia J. Arnson
Full document2016, Greene & Arson, Pacific Alliance Ongoing Challenges Trade Integration

Abstract:
Not available

Resumen:
¿Cuáles son los impactos del ascenso del Asia emergente sobre el proceso de integración latinoamericano? ¿Se avanza hacia una fractura en este proceso o se abren nuevos espacios de cooperación y coordinación? ¿Hasta qué punto se están creando
divergencias y qué áreas posibles de convergencia existen? El abordaje de la supuesta antinomia existente entre el Mercosur y la Alianza del Pacífico (AP), una perspectiva de análisis desde la economía política a tres niveles (internacional, regional y nacional) y las visiones de la región desde Asia pueden servir para responder a esos interrogantes.

Author: Mariano Turzi
Spanish Title: Asia y la ¿(des)integración latinoamericana?
Full document: 2014, Turzi, Asia y la ¿(des)integración Latinoamericana?

Abstract:
The aim of this thesis has been to provide “Pacific Alliance” of Latin America with a bundle of recommendations to make a successful economic integration with “Asian Pacific” region. It seems that following the Comparative Advantage theory developed by David Ricardo (1772-1823), under the incipient technological progress has damaged some developing economies, to such an extent that their specialization on exploiting and exporting raw materials are condemned them to live in a vicious circle. This is a compelling situation between getting high rents from natural resource exports, low investment in Research & Development to innovation, reaching also poor Human Development Indexes (“The Curse of Natural Resources”). On the other hand, there is a virtuous circle between manufacture exports by developing high-tech industries, high investment in Research & Development to innovate, reaching also high Human Development Indexes; such as Asian Tigers in the last decades (“Learning by Exporting”).

These two central hypotheses have been testing under cross section econometric assessment, including more than one hundred countries for the three last decades (1981-2010). There are evidences to fulfilling both. The exports of Ores and Metals and other raw material oriented goods have negative impacts, while manufacture exports positive impact on the economic growth. Similarly, service exports have led the economic growth in the last decades due to Technology & Communication and International Commercial activities are increasing faster. They are significant and robust explanatory variables. Therefore, governments from raw material export oriented countries, like “Pacific Alliance”, should take into account Pragmatic Innovation Agenda and Technology Policies to get better sustainable living conditions. Otherwise, they will still suffering from the volatility of commodities demand and prices, low Research & Development investment, poor Human Development Index and social
conflicts.

Author: Hernán Ricardo Briceño
Full document: 2013, Briceno, Industry Oriented Asian Tigers and the Natural Resource based Pacific Alliance Economic Growth Models