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Verónica Rubio Vega | Post-crisis Responses and Prospects in Latin America
to regional integration alternatives. The pressures of international trade and
growth have shown that there is no charity yuan or real. In addition, the
interest rates offered by Brazil and China may soon become higher than
those offered by the IFIs. However, both countries are investing in Latin
America in many instances for the long-term. An indication of this trend is
the 2009 decision of the Chinese government to become a member and
contributor to the Inter-American Development Bank, where traditionally
the US has exercised significant powers since its creation. 51
Regional alternatives
Latin American economies have to increasingly realize that it is quite
possible that global economic and financial practices, as conceived by most
industrialised countries, may soon return to ‘business as normal’ while
creating a new set of profit-generating ‘trubbles.’ 52 In order to avoid some of
these ‘trubbles,’ various scholars 53
suggest that countries could ‘delink’
themselves from these types of relationships with Western economies by
establishing regional arrangements. The ongoing rhetoric of the Venezuelan
government for alternative trade arrangements (and now including the
support of countries like Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba) has drawn academics’
and practitioners’ attention to initiatives such as the Bank of the South (BOS)
and ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas).
51 Arce line 144.
52 Gallagher 30.
53 See for example Hanieh (2009), Veltmeyer (2009) and Hart-Landberg (2009).
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