UN agency: LatAm, China share similar challenges

Challenges of structural transformation for social equality in Latin American and Caribbean nations "are very similar to those in China," said a senior official of a regional agency for the United Nations.

"China is in a deep structural change, in which the most complex challenge could be how to solve the local gaps, between the urban and the rural zones, and between the east of the country, which is more developed with technological and industrial breakthroughs, and the west, which requires further progress," Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), told Xinhua.

There are also "common challenges between Latin America and China, as is the case of social protection and the management of tensions ahead," said the official, who paid her first visit to China last month.

She added that China's project which "sets equality at the center of the development strategy is very important because Latin America is also in the process of putting equality at the center."

In a biennial session in September in El Salvador, ECLAC confirmed the need to develop across the region a structural change that will allow progress toward knowledge-intensive segments, convergence to reduce internal and external gaps of income and productivity, and advance in the equality of rights.

During her stay in Beijing, Barcena met Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Vice Premier Hui Liangyu and other foreign ministry officials.

Furthermore, she attended the Sixth China-Latin America Business Summit in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, and attended meetings in several research centers and academic institutions.

She said her trip "was something spectacular, as it allowed me to be in China for this occasion, and have had the opportunity to meet with senior officials and observe the progress that this country has made in every direction and the challenges it faces."

"There are important advances and significant challenges," she added.

The official pointed out that structural change in China "is a very profound change because the urban-rural population is rapidly transforming."

"Nowadays, we can see in China a process of urbanization of around 51 percent, while Latin America is already a continent with 80 percent of urban areas," and both sides can share lessons learned from the process, she said.

Barcena said it is interesting to see how China has successfully invested heavily in the field of science and technology, which has significantly improved the country's productivity.

"So, the kind of businesses, the activities that have been carried out in that process are very important for us."

She explained that the Chinese development model is different from the Latin American one "in the sense that China, after having investment rates above 40 percent, is now trying to shift toward increasing domestic consumption," saying: "This structural modification will last very long years, but is timely."

"China has to some extent a process, a program, a schedule with the 12th Five-Year Plan which places great relevance in ensuring the living conditions of its population, and places the expansion of domestic demand as one of the central themes. It is also expected to change the foreign trade policy toward a more internal trade. Those are big changes we are about to see," she said.

Barcena predicted that the North-North trade will be replaced between 2017 and 2020 by a stronger South-South trade.

"For example, economic exchanges between the Asia-Pacific and Latin America will have a great potential as these two regions have a rising middle class on the one hand, and even if we have the 'middle income trap,' which is nothing other than how we tackle the internal inequalities of countries."

According to the official, ECLAC published the first issue of its official magazine in Chinese this month, with articles on China in the fields of trade, investment and bilateral cooperation.

The UN agency will also hold a seminar on social protection in 2013 with the participation of Chinese specialists, she said.