Chinese Electric Power Projects in the Pan-Amazonian region

The economic value of China’s financing of overseas projects is almost as relevant as that of the World Bank, albeit of a more intermittent nature. From 2008 to 2019, Chinese investment abroad totaled nearly half a trillion dollars – $462 billion. In this same period, the power sector was the third most funded sector – behind only transportation infrastructure, oil and gas – accumulating just under $100 billion.
In recent decades, the countries that share the Amazon have attracted an increasing number of Chinese investments and financing directed to the power sector. In order to better understand the range of Chinese projects in the electricity sector in the region, we conducted a study that identified and mapped Chinese investments and financing in the Brazilian Legal Amazon (BLA) and the Colombian, Bolivian, Peruvian, Ecuadorian, Venezuelan, and Guyanese Amazon.

Authors
Maria Elena Rodriguez – Cândido Grinsztejn