It is almost as if Latin America has been rediscovered by Australia nearly 200 years after most of the region’s countries declared independence from Spain. The resilience of the Latin American economies in the face of the Global Financial Crisis has spawned a cottage industry of books explaining how regional countries have gone from the disaster of the 1980s and 1990s to repeated successes in the early 21st century.¹ This triumphalist tone extends to individual country studies, particularly Brazil,² as well as through media accounts of the economic successes of such varied countries as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and...

The United States took longer to realize that a weak State does not generate a strong market. They needed the brutal financial crisis of 2008 to wake up.¹

With this striking headline Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira began his opinion editorial published in mid-June 2011 in the solidly respectable and centrist Brazilian newspaperO Folha de São Paulo. Bresser Pereira was commenting on a news story supplied by the newspaper’s Washington correspondent, suggesting that President Barack Obama intended to ‘create a bank similar to the BNDES [Brazilian Economic and Social Development Bank]’ in order to finance transportation, energy and sanitation projects...

One of the main challenges in building a solid relationship between Australia and Latin America is finding an area of convergence. The distances between the two areas are vast, the linguistic barriers significant, and the level of mutual knowledge and understanding small. At first blush matters are further complicated when attention is turned to economic questions, with Latin America and Australia appearing more as competitors than complementary actors in international natural resource and agricultural commodity markets. Bilateral flows of trade in goods are correspondingly small, further hampered by the logistical difficulties of travelling between the geographic areas by air or...

The chapter outlines the background to the Latin America Program’s launch by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID),¹ which manages the bulk of official development assistance (ODA) to the region. It also provides an overview of the Program’s current and proposed activities. It reviews the current approach in the contexts of operation, especially focusing on the necessity for effective partnerships. It considers briefly a number of different forms of collaborative work, including trilateral engagements (i.e., third country delivery via channelling of funds through regional governments) and partnering with other donors, including the New Zealand Aid Programme; The United States...

Environmental issues have taken centre stage in the globalised world of the 21st century. There is a growing awareness and acceptance of the interconnectedness of nation states, not just at the level of trade, investment and ideas, but also at the level of the shared environmental consequences stemming from the types of development undertaken. Environmental damage in one nation state can directly affect contiguous nation states, as has been observed in the past with events such as acid rain, flooding, and nuclear fallout, but a far greater problem is the global nature of the current environmental crisis as manifested by—...

Australia and the countries of Latin America are situated in the most economically dynamic part of the globe that has been exposed to the effects of significant economic growth in East Asia.¹ Nevertheless, trade and investment flows across the South Pacific have long held a promise that has not yet been fully realised. Both remained relatively marginal until quite recently. Chief among the casual answers for this fact is the notion that the respective economies lack complementarity, as Australia and its Latin American counterparts have traditionally been competitive exporters of primary products, primarily agricultural goods, but also minerals.

The purpose...

Chapter 5 surveyed the development of the trade and business relations between Australia and the countries of Latin America during a period of more than 20 years.¹ Apart from pointing to the fact that growth of these relations was carried by four key countries in Latin America, and by the diversification of trade and business relations towards manufactures and services, it did not explain the more fundamental reasons why trade and business relations increased. Identifying those reasons is important because it facilitates the discovery of the foundations for further growth and diversification, and the formulation of relevant government initiatives that...

This chapter takes us into the past, present and future of Latin Americans living in Australia. It represents the first comprehensive quantitative study of the integration of Latinos into their adopted motherland. The only precedent is the study carried out by the Spanish-born Rafaela López in 2002 on the contributions of Spanish and Latin American people in Victoria.¹

It provides ample evidence that historically Latino communities have been part of the fabric of Australia, albeit in small numbers. It confirms also the communities’ struggle to insert themselves into Australian society and their success in achieving it.

It finds that the...

This chapter provides an overview of the contrasting structure of the media industries in Australia and Latin America, and outlines some of the technological and corporate trends associated with globalisation. In Australia, there is a small commercial market of print and electronic media for people of Latin American origin, but this has inherent limitations, the advantages endowed by a common language, on one hand, being offset by the internal diversity of national and other kinds of difference on the other. In such circumstances, government plays a benign and supportive role as both a broadcaster and an advertiser. There is also...

In the second decade of the 21st century, globalisation and the digital revolution have made culture, in all its manifestations, a powerful vehicle for building global relationships and creating business. It was once said, in international relations, that culture follows commerce; however, this chapter sees culture as commerce itself and as a means of leading to greater commercial relations via knowledge transfer. It sees culture as a broad reciprocal phenomenon. While on the one hand, the flow of Australian cultural products into Latin America serves to enhance our profile in the region and also provides access for our artists to...

Australians wanting to do business in the countries of Latin America need to understand the people they are doing business with. That means knowing more about these countries, past and present. The present book aims to provide some of that necessary knowledge. It also means as Australians we take a good hard look at ourselves: how we present ourselves and how we are likely to be interpreted by people from these countries, for both good and ill. These are considerations that the business community needs to take on board. This chapter will argue the necessity for greater cultural sensitivity, not...