Is the change in globalization’s rhythm an opportunity for Latin-American emerging economies?

International trade in goods and services increased two to three times faster than global GDP between the 1990s and the 2008 crisis. On average, therefore, all countries are more open than they once were. However, some countries have become more open. Taking the example of Brazil and China, the openness rate ¹ , measured by exports of goods and services in value terms to gross domestic product, rose in Brazil from 7.2% in 1979 to 13.04% in 2015, with a peak at 16.55% in 2004. In China, it was 5.20% and 22.37% at those same dates with a peak at 35.65% in 2006 according to the World Bank. Between 1960 and 2015, in 55 years, exports of goods and services increased by 85% in Brazil and 415% in China. When comparing Brazil’s and China’s exports to world exports in the early 1980s, it is roughly equivalent in the two countries at 1%. Thirty years later, Brazilian exports amounted to 1.1% of world exports, while in China they reached 12%. The two countries therefore opened up, but at very different rates.