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China and Latin American countries will strengthen cooperation in more areas such as technology and medical treatment in the post COVID-19 pandemic era, with the aim of pushing forward high-quality growth of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a Chinese expert said.
Since the BRI was proposed in 2013, developing nations in Latin America have been active participants in cooperating under the initiative based on their demands for connecting with the world, said Zhou Mi, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).
As BRI focuses on the Asian, European and African continents and is also open to all other countries, cooperation under the initiative has brought many development opportunities for countries in Latin America, Zhou told the Belt and Road Portal in a recent interview.
Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the value of new contracts signed by Chinese companies in Latin America rose 17.3 percent year-on-year from January to September, data recently released by MOFCOM showed.
Though bilateral trade was down 2.8 percent in the same period due to the pandemic, China’s imports from Latin America grew 1 percent and imports of agricultural goods surged nearly 20 percent, according to the data.
Chinese investment in Latin America is mainly concentrated in countries such as Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Chile and Mexico, due to these countries』 industrial structures, Zhou said, noting that Chinese capital tends to go to sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure and energy.
For instance, as cherries and red wine from Chile are popular among Chinese consumers, the two countries have sought more cooperation in the agricultural sector.
「Latin America and the Caribbean are a natural extension of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and also one of the most promising regions in the world,」 Peng Tao, a senior trade official with MOFCOM, told a forum in early November.
Among the 24 Latin American countries that have established diplomatic relations with China, 19 countries have signed a memorandum of understanding on jointly building the BRI with China, Peng said.
Latin America has large demand for cooperation in sectors like infrastructure, and the COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to new areas of cooperation including health, medical treatment and digital economy under the BRI, according to Zhou.
China and Latin American countries are expected to explore cooperation in some new areas such as 5G technology, artificial intelligence, smart city, cloud computing and the industrial internet, Zhou said.
「The demand for driving the digital economy has provided large cooperation potential for China and Latin American countries... this cooperation should be based on a more open and inclusive attitude,」 he said.
「As we can see, some countries try to restrict 5G cooperation with China citing so-called national security, which may protect the interests of its own companies in the short term, but in the long run, such countries will definitely lag behind the rest of the globe by excluding the services provided by the global industrial leaders,」 Zhou noted.
In addition, China is willing to share its development experience with Latin American countries, such as financing for infrastructure construction and reducing foreign exchange reserves risks, he said.
中國一帶一路網線下活動：黃仁偉、丁一凡、翟崑、儲殷和你一起辭舊迎新~獨家丨北京外國語大學顧佳贇：「一帶一路」倡議在柬埔寨非洲大陸自貿區來了！中非合作更有「含金量」來源丨中國一帶一路網 作者丨黃格
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原標題：《China, Latin America to drive high-quality growth of BRI: expert》
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