ARGENTINA: China's President Xi Jinping lays a wreath at the monument to Argentine independence hero San Martin and holds bilateral meeting with the Vice President of Argentina on the second day of his official visit

Record ID: 449196

  • Title: ARGENTINA: China's President Xi Jinping lays a wreath at the monument to Argentine independence hero San Martin and holds bilateral meeting with the Vice President of Argentina on the second day of his official visit
  • Date: 19th July 2014
  • Summary: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (JULY 19, 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PRESIDENT OF CHINA XI JINPING ARRIVING AT SAN MARTIN PLAZA FOR MONUMENT CEREMONY VARIOUS OF JINPING WALKING WITH ARGENTINE FOREIGN MINISTER HECTOR TIMMERMAN VARIOUS OF JINPING VARIOUS OF JINPING LAYING THE WREATH AT THE BASE OF THE MONUMENT JINPING LEAVING
  • Embargoed: 3rd August 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA7ZVZWDWA4X4S21X1OKZFKDQ7P
  • Story Text: On the second day of his official visit to Argentina, Chinese President Xi Jinping Saturday (July 19) met with the host country's Vice President after laying a wreath at the base of the monument of the father of Argentine independence from Spain, Jose de San Martin.
    Later in the day Jinping met with the Vice President of Argentina, Amado Boudou and members of Argentina's Congress.
    The morning meetings comes on the heels of Friday (July 18) night's deal signing ceremony with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez that allows Argentina to borrow $7.5 billion from China at a time when the Latin American country cannot tap global capital markets because of disputes over unpaid debt.
    Among the deals signed, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and her Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed on a loan for $4.7 billion from the China Development Bank for the construction of two hydroelectric dams in Patagonia. China Gezhouba Group Corp and Argentina's Electroingenieria SA won contracts last year to build the two dams, which will have a combined generating capacity of 1,740 megawatts.
    The Chinese bank also granted a $2.1 billion loan to help finance a long-delayed railway project that would make it more efficient to transport grains from Argentina's agricultural plains to its ports.
    China is Argentina's second-largest trading partner after neighbor Brazil. In 2013, Argentina's trade deficit with the Asian country increased more than 20 percent to $5.8 billion.
    Argentina is the world's third-largest exporter of soy and corn. China is the main buyer of its soybeans.
    Xi, China's first president to visit Latin America's third-largest economy in a decade, arrived in the capital city of Buenos Aires on Friday after participating in a summit of emerging economies of the BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - in Fortaleza, Brazil, earlier this week.
    He also signed a three-year agreement for an $11 billion swap operation between the central banks of Argentina and China that will let the Latin American country pay for Chinese imports with the yuan currency.
    Argentina signed a similar deal with China in 2009.
    The central bank could ask for the total or partial disbursement of the 70 billion yuan in exchange for pesos to invest it, or to exchange it to dollars to fuel its reserves, said an Argentine central bank official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
    Fernandez's government has imposed stringent import and capital controls to safeguard dwindling foreign reserves, which it needs to pay its debts. It has been virtually shut out of global credit markets since staging a massive 2002 default.
    Hopes that Argentina's government might access markets again soon hinge on the country reaching a deal with holdout creditors who rejected its debt restructuring in 2005 and 2010.
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