Latin America: Canada Trade Rebounds

BY LBC STAFF

Canada’s trade with Latin America grew by 26.2 percent last year, marking a rebound from the global crisis year of 2009. All in all trade reached  48.1 billion Canadian dollars (US$48.4 billion).  Exports to Latin America increased 15.6 percent to 11.6 billion Canadian dollars, while imports from Latin America jumped 30 percent to 36.5 billion Canadian dollars.  That resulted in a trade deficit of 25 billion Canadian dollars, according to a Latin Business Chronicle analysis of data from Statistics Canada. 

“While Canada consistently runs trade deficits with Latin America and the Caribbean, a good part of that can be explained by the private sector’s outdated perceptions of the region resulting in risk aversion as well as a lack of entrepreneurial drive on the part of Canadian exporters, particularly smaller firms,” argues Jerry Haar, a professor at Florida International University, in a column in Latin Business Chronicle.

He credits the Canadian government for its aggressive push to boost two-way trade with Latin America through free trade agreements and other measures. Canada will soon have FTAs with 28 of 34 countries in the region, Haar points out.

Case in point: While the ...

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