Chinese insertion in the Brazilian economy and productive restructuring

by Marcel Barbosa

The Chinese economy has been undergoing significant structural changes and showing extraordinary expansion through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the last four decades; which has indiscriminately affected the absolute majority of countries, especially since the 2000s. Concomitantly, the Brazilian economy has been characterized by two phenomena of the greatest relevance: 1) the decrease in its manufacturing industry compared to GDP and 2) the reprimarization of the national export agenda. Given this situation, this book presents the following question: are Chinese FDIs carried out in Brazil after the year 2000 responsible for the structural change manifested by the relative loss of the manufacturing industry and in the Brazilian foreign trade pattern expressed by its reprimarization? To this end, we seek to analyze the impacts that Chinese trade flows and IEDs have had on the national productive sector, specifically, on its manufacturing industry and on the pattern of foreign trade.