Latin America has experienced two decades of deepening ties with Asia, initially through commodities and later through finished goods and strategic investment. But the nature of Asian engagement is changing. Until recently, Asian firms—particularly from China—operated under business standards that mirrored U.S. and Western practices. Today, they are introducing their own business models, technologies, payment expectations, and infrastructure strategies into the region.
In AMI/PCMI’s 2026 Latin America Forecast, our analysts examined how Asian business influence—especially from China, India, and Southeast Asia—is reshaping payments, logistics, and mining, and what this means for companies competing in those sectors.
Asian Business Models Are Both Competitors and Partners in LatAm Payments
Asian marketplaces—TikTok Shop, Shein, Temu, Shopee and others—continue to gain deeper penetration across Latin America. As these platforms become household names, they are introducing Asian-born shopping models that fundamentally reshape how consumers pay.
Influencer-driven commerce, livestream shopping, social networks used as direct points of sale—TikTok is at the forefront of this shift. These models alter the entire payment flow, requiring PSPs, acquirers, and wallets to support new checkout paths, social-commerce APIs, and instant payout structures.
Asian platforms also compete aggressively on price. Products sold on these platforms are often significantly cheaper than local alternatives, creating an affordability gap that local merchants struggle to match. This puts new pressure on the payments ecosystem to offer:
- Personalized installment solutions
- Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options
- Loyalty and rewards programs
- Ultra-fast shipping supported by efficient last-mile logistics
Compounding the disruption, regulators are responding to the wave of low-value cross-border shipments with new taxes. Mexico’s 2025 move to tax low-value imports is a striking example. Yet despite these measures, cross-border e-commerce continues to outpace domestic e-commerce growth in the region.
Despite taxes and import tariffs imposed on products, Latin American consumers are still have a voracious appetite for products coming from abroad, not only from Asia. Even though the price parity that local merchants can gain through taxes is an advantage, they also should consider selling similar products. In fact, we’re even seeing retailers invest in B2B relationships with distributors and B2B platforms in China to have the same products or similar products on their platform.
Beyond cross-border e-commerce, Asian influence is also now extending to real-time payments (RTP). Peru’s Central Bank is studying India’s UPI as a model for its national RTP system—an extraordinary development given Pix’s regional dominance. Peruvian officials perceive India’s cash-heavy, high-informality economy as a closer comparison than Brazil’s.
If Peru follows an India-style model, the influence of Asian real-time payment systems could reshape Latin America’s payment landscape—with card networks playing a more marginal role in those flows.
Recommendations for Payments Players
- Compete on affordability: strengthen installments, BNPL and customer-specific financing
- Use loyalty and fast fulfillment to counter Asian price advantages
- Develop B2B supplier relationships in Asia to match price parity where feasible
- Fintechs: monitor Peru’s RTP path and prepare tailored GTM strategies
- Banks & card networks: prepare for mid-term declines in debit-card volume and intensifying competition for customer engagement
Chinese Infrastructure, Financing, and Technical Standards Are Rewiring Latin America’s Mining Future
Asian influence—especially from Chinese state-owned enterprises—is extending far beyond commodity trade and into full industrial ecosystems surrounding mining.
Chinese SOEs increasingly bundle mining projects with ports, roads, power grids, and logistics corridors, an approach designed to secure long-term mineral flows. Projects aligned with these Chinese-backed corridors gain preferential access to financing, engineering capabilities, and construction support. Peru’s Chancay megaport exemplifies this trend: mining operations connected to this hub may enjoy a structural advantage in route efficiency and capital availability.
Another major shift is the rise of Chinese technical standards in minerals essential for AI, batteries, telecommunications, and the broader digital economy. As Chinese tech adoption grows, so will the need for mining companies to ensure interoperability between Western systems and emerging Chinese standards.
Finally, resource demand is increasingly tied to Chinese industrial and consumer sectors—from electric vehicles to telecom equipment to smart devices. This concentration of demand may influence global pricing cycles and supply priorities. Locating operations near Chinese-financed industrial clusters may accelerate approvals and open access to guaranteed demand streams.
Recommendations for Mining Companies
- Leverage Chinese infrastructure commitments while negotiating strong protections for operational autonomy
- Invest in dual-standards interoperability (Western + Chinese) for technology, data, and industrial processes
- Secure diversified offtake agreements to avoid dependence on a single standard ecosystem
- Position new projects near Chinese-backed industrial clusters where feasible but maintain risk buffers against political or regulatory shifts
What Latin Americans Consume Increasingly Originates in China—and What This Means for Logistics
Asia’s expanding commercial footprint is transforming logistics across Latin America—from consumer imports to software systems to large-scale trade infrastructure.
1. Overall Flow of Goods
Asian-origin goods already dominate many categories:
- China accounted for 26.3% of Brazil’s total imports in the first half of 2025
- China accounted for 20.1% of Mexico’s imports in H1 2025, making it #2 after the US, with 40.2%
- 50% increase in Chinese products imported into Colombia in H1 2025 vs. H1 2024
- 80% increase in Chinese imports to Argentina in H1 2025
- Chinese brands accounted for nearly 30% of new passenger car sales in Chile in Q1 2025 and also in Q2, while posting a 57% share of cars imported into Mexico during January-May 2025 and an increase of 52% in imports to Brazil from January to October 2025
- Shein now sources from 300+ Brazilian factories, deepening local integration.
With Asian firms projected to increase exports to Latin America as trade continues to expand between the regions (the volume of trade between China and LatAm alone is expected to reach US$700 billion by 2035), logistics providers must elevate their capabilities to match Asian delivery expectations.
2. New Operational Standards
Asian e-commerce companies are bringing smart-warehouse models, AI-driven automation, and Chinese software standards into the region. As firms like BYD expand local manufacturing in Brazil, Asian operational models will increasingly set the norm.
This shift challenges local logistics operators to ensure interoperability between Western systems and Asian standards to avoid inventory mismatches, data duplication, and trade-document errors.
3. Infrastructure Wave
After years focused on digital growth, infrastructure investment is returning in force—driven in part by Asian capital. New port and power-grid projects in Peru, Chile, and Brazil are reshaping trade routes. Chancay port will become a major Pacific gateway, enabling lower logistics costs and higher productivity through more competitive freight pathways.
Recommendations for Logistics Players
- Upgrade warehouse tech and fulfillment systems to meet Asian platform expectations
- Integrate with Asian platform APIs for seamless inventory, tracking, and delivery communication
- Develop system interoperability strategies to bridge Western and Chinese software environments
- Compete on speed, assortment, and reliability, not price—where Asian platforms dominate due to scale
Next Steps
Contact us to explore more about how the rising Asian business influence in Latin America could affect your company.
We can conduct a competitive intelligence study to evaluate your Asian competitors in consumer products or e-commerce, while also evaluating the market landscape in mining, logistics and other industries to help you better prepare for the expansion of Asian companies into the LatAm markets in which your company operates.
