Chinese investment in Venezuela exceeds $ 62.2 billion in 9 years

In the last ten years, Chinese participation in Latin America has steadily increased.

Venezuela tops the list of the countries with the highest investment in that nation. Between 2007 and 2016 it stood at 62,200 million dollars, followed by Brazil (36,800 million), Ecuador (17,400 million) and Argentina (15,300 million), according to figures from the Inter-American Dialogue Studies Center.

In December of last year, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, in the framework of the Joint Commission between the two countries, when taking stock of the results of the meeting, said "so far 15 meetings of the Mixed Commission between both nations, 472 agreements from which more than 790 bilateral projects come off ".

Through multi-million dollar loans and investments, China has become the main creditor in Latin America. The Asian power will take advantage of the ministerial meeting with the countries of CELAC, which will begin tomorrow in Santiago (Chile), to strengthen its global leadership.

Chinese President, Xi Jinping, already announced at the first China-CELAC meeting, held in Beijing in 2015, his intention to increase investment in this part of the continent to 250,000 million dollars in the next 10 years and double bilateral trade in a decade to reach 500,000 million dollars.

The debate now is how to channel these credits in regional development infrastructure projects, since the lack of agreements between Latin American countries could limit their scope.

Latin American diplomatic sources in Beijing insisted to EFE that one of the main problems is that "CELAC does not currently have the capacity to propose projects", something that would have to be revised.

This has caused that, since the last China-CELAC meeting in 2015, no joint project has been proposed, but unilateral initiatives of the countries that make it up.

It is expected that during the meeting in Santiago, the proposal made by China for the creation of a free trade zone with CELAC will also be valued, according to the Uruguayan president, Tabaré Vázquez.

On this point, the director of the China and Latin America program of the Inter-American Dialogue, Margaret Myers said that "it is difficult to imagine how China would achieve a regional or even subregional trade agreement, when this has already been tried on many occasions."

He added that "the perception of Trump's abandonment to the region, together with the negative rhetoric used during the presidential campaign, has only accelerated the creation of new alliances between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean," Myers added.

In the midst of China's strategy to take hold in Latin America, voices critical of the internal question these plans abroad, which does not yield profits. "It is hoped that China will cut its projects in Latin America to make them more realistic and viable," said Wang Hsiu-chi, a professor of Latin American Studies at Tamkang University.