Part I · Chapter 10
South America
Why should an Indian exporter spend years on a continent that buys little from India and sits weeks away by sea, and how is a place there won before the crowd comes? This chapter is for manufacturers and brand owners with patience, especially those whose rivals already crowd the Gulf and South-East Asia. Through a Rajkot machinery maker who spent years in Chile before any competitor looked, it argues that friction on this continent protects whoever arrives early. It explains the narrow pact India already has with the MERCOSUR bloc, why talks with Chile, Peru and Brazil have quickened, and how minerals diplomacy can carry unrelated products in on its tariff schedules. It then takes the markets one by one: Brazil with its demanding registration and customs systems, Chile as the natural test market, Peru on the horizon, and Argentina with its currency controls. It closes on the case for a Spanish-speaking desk and on long transit and slow payment. Afterwards you can judge whether your business has the patience this continent rewards, and how soon to begin.
Key ideas
- On a continent almost no Indian rival has bothered to reach, the year of testing, the Spanish speaker and the slow letters of credit that make entry costly are what leave later arrivals years behind the first.
- Trade deals pursued for critical minerals carry ordinary product lines in with them.
- In Argentina the threat to an exporter's money comes from the state more than the customer, so the guarantee of an outside bank is cover against policy rather than against bad faith.
