On June 4, 2015, the 1st China-LAC Infrastructure Forum was held in Macao. Chinese Deputy China International Trade Representative Zhang Xiangchen attended the opening ceremony and made a speech.
Zhang said that, the Chinese government attached great importance to the reciprocal economic and trade cooperation with Latin America and Caribbean countries. After President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Latin America in July 2014, Premier Li Keqiang made an official visit to Latin America in May this year. During the visits, the Chinese leaders put forward a series of important measures and proposals to promote the practical cooperation between China and Latin America.
Zhang pointed out that, Latin America and Caribbean countries is one of the most active and potential regions in the world. In recent years, China-Latin America cooperation is full of vigor, and the two parties have become important trade and investment cooperation partners. Particularly, China’s investment to Latin America and Caribbean countries enjoyed a rapid growth. At present, the global economic recovery is weak, and both China and Latin America are developing countries at a critical stage of reform and development. The bilateral cooperation has a vast prospect, and the cooperation in infrastructure construction is even more important. Latin America countries are promoting a new round of infrastructure construction, and realizing the connectivity of the whole South American continent has become the common goal of all the countries in the region. China possesses mature technology, equipments and rich experience in infrastructure construction, and some competitive enterprises of international project contracting and investment have sprung up, many of which have started business in Latin America and the Caribbean region and have gained good achievements. Up to the end of 2014, the newly signed project contracting contracts of China in Latin America and the Caribbean region have amounted to US$ 100 billion, with the completed turnover of US$ 67.6 billion, covering several infrastructure construction fields like natural gas pipeline, power station, highway, harbour dredging, housing, communication equipments and railway.
At last, Zhang put forward four suggestions on China-Latin America infrastructure cooperation, including strengthening projects planning, making good use of financial policies, sticking to the market orientation, and establishing contact mechanism.
The forum was attended by over 700 participants including the Vice President of Costa Rica Fallas, the Deputy Prime Minister of Bahamas Davis and officials of the governments of Caribbean countries and personnel from financial institutions and the enterprises circle.
