한ㆍ중남미지역의 통상협력방안에 관한 연구

A Study on the Commercial Cooperation Plan between Korea and Latin America

Latin America areas have continued to push forward macroeconomic policies such as openness, freedom, and privatization since 1990s, while focusing on economic stability, although recession has continued due to the so-called "lost decade" during the 1980s. Meanwhile, they created various local economic blocs to increase economic cooperation. Countries of Latin America have structural weakness that makes it difficult to cut trade deficit and budget deficit due to excessive burden of foreign debt payment. Different from the diversity in the East Asian countries, however, regional economic blocs like Mercosur have been formed as the member countries briskly work on creating free trade blocs to increase economic operation among the neighboring countries. The relations between Korean and Latin America did not receive much attention due to geographical, language, and cultural differences although the relations go back to late 1950s. Because of this reason, there has been lack of attention in exchange and related studies. Especially, even though studies on NAFTA and EU under the WTO system have been active, interests and studies on Latin America, Mercosur, and foreign policies with them have been low and scarce. However, considering growth potential and geographical advantage that is easy access to North America, Latin America is of great importance to both the government and the companies. Accordingly, this study suggests commercial cooperation directions and tasks between Korea and Latin America, newly recognizing the budding importance of Latin America under the international trading environments that put great emphasis on mutual reliance.