SHARED DEVELOPMENT
Investing in education, labor training, high-technology, innovation, and research and development are all key elements to make the leap from being a middle-income country to a high-income one.
"A capabilities-focused strategy offers the only promise for shifting production towards more knowledge-intensive activities and avoiding becoming trapped at the middle-income level," the ECLAC report said.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) makes the same argument in its "2015 Latin American Economic Outlook" report.
"The main barriers to climbing the economic ladder in Latin America are education, skills and innovation," the report said.
Overcoming those barriers, however, is no easy task. The region's infamous inequality and under-funded educational systems require major social and educational reforms, which may take decades to achieve.
In the meantime, increased ties with China can play a decisive role, especially as the world's second largest economy looks for more overseas investment opportunities.
On Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that cooperation with China could help strengthen the South American country's industrial and technological progress, while attending the inauguration of a joint- venture bus manufacturing plant in western Yaracuy state.
Dubbed as the most modern bus plant ever built in Latin America, the Yutong Bus Factory will not only help renovate the country's aging public transit fleet, but more importantly leave a more lasting legacy by boosting Venezuela's automotive industry.
Farther south, in Argentina, China is helping with the construction of two nuclear plants, which will bolster the country's scientific, technological and industrial capabilities.
