Chinese premier's visit to LatAm to enhance capacity cooperation

Infographics by Xinhua.

BEIJING - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang left Beijing on Sunday to start his official visit to Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Chile, with stopovers in Ireland and Spain.

The visit, China's another significant diplomatic action after Chinese President Xi Jinping's Latin America tour last year, is to promote bilateral industrial capacity cooperation, enhance political trust, and deepen cultural and people-to-people exchanges, among others.

Cooperation in finance, technology, aerospace, infrastructure and other emerging sectors is expected to be highlighted during Li's visit, beyond the traditional spheres of cooperation such as mineral resources, energy and agriculture.

"China and Latin America cooperated mainly in mineral resources, commodities and agricultural products in the past, but with China's economic restructuring, the situation would change, which is conducive to balancing the bilateral economic and trade development," said Xu Shicheng, a senior researcher on Latin America with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

To enhance industrial capacity cooperation mainly involves moving production lines from one country to another or setting up factories and industrial parks with local partners, employing mainly local people.

China is committed to diversifying and optimizing the structure of trade with Latin American countries with a goal to export advanced equipment and technology and import more high value-added products.

Jorge Castro, director of the Strategic Planning Institute and an expert on Sino-Argentine ties, said earlier that Chinese investment in Latin America's manufacturing industry has already begun to increase.

In Brazil, for example, China has invested more than $10 billion in the sector, he said.

As one of China's biggest train makers, China CNR Corporation Ltd. started market survey in Latin America in 2004, and has secured orders for 100 electric multiple units (EMU), a type of intercity high-speed train, and 34 subway trains for Rio over the past six years.

Among many Chinese companies that have interest in the Brazilian market, BYD, a Chinese electric vehicle and solar panel manufacturer, is set to enter the electric bus market.