Abstract:Latin American countries face huge demands for infrastructure investment, while China’s capacity advantages in this area have attracted international attention in recent years. From the historical perspective, commodity－price－based economic growth, government capacity and private sector participation are the most important three drivers behind the development of Latin America infrastructure investment, meanwhile these factors also constitute the main risks for investors. The presence of many strong companies in this market，whether local or international, reflects the attractiveness of infrastructure investment in Latin America. The newly emerged PPP mode is one of the most important approaches to implement infrastructure construction. However, the differences of regional governments’ capacity in controlling the PPP operation and their diversified objectives in infrastructure development make this market highly complicated. During the process of developing construction projects both domestically and internationally, Chinese construction companies have accumulated rich experiences, technical capacity and international business capabilities，which has won fame in overseas engineering contracting business. However, due to lack of experience in the field of PPP projects, Chinese construction companies should deepen its understanding for Latin American infrastructure market and evaluate the potential opportunities and risks. Chinese construction companies need to make full use of their advantages and strive for a win－win situation.

Authors:Chen Taotao, Gu Lingjun,Xu Run, Jin Ying

Journal of Latin American Studies, Issue 3, vol.39, 2017