Boric inaugurates Chile Week in China to strengthen commercial ties

The president of Chili, Gabriel Boricinaugurated today in the Chinese city of Chengdu the Chile Week, which aims to consolidate the commercial relationship of its country with China and enhance the Chilean economy through dialogue and agreements.

“We are interested in ensuring that our relationship with this giant, so important in shaping the 21st century scenario, is not limited only to commercial and economic exchange, but that we also advance in greater scientific and technological cooperation,” Boric indicated in statements to the press at the beginning of his trip.

The commercial platform, which together with Chendu will include activities in Beijing, Shanghai and the industrial hub of Shenzhen, will encompass high-level meetings, business roundtables and technical visits to leading companies in various sectors, seminars to promote dialogue both business and between representatives of governments, culture and academia.

“Chile is much more than a seller of raw materials. “We have knowledge, human capital, culture and we want the world to know it too”said the ruler.

Furthermore, he highlighted that “Being a developed country is not only in economic terms, but also in cultural and social justice terms and that is the perspective that we come to tell the authorities and people of China.”

Chile and China, which established diplomatic relations in 1970, have a free trade agreement in force since 2006 and updated in 2019 and a trade balance favorable to the Latin American country that added exchanges worth US$65 billion in 2022, of which Exports amounted to US$ 39,176 million.

China is Chile’s first trading partner, while the southern country is China’s third in Latin America, behind Brazil and Argentina.

Boric highlighted that the average annual growth between 2017 and 2022 was 14% ,with “prospect for further growth by opening new business niches for companies in China and establishing alliances in infrastructure.”

Among the main Chilean exports to the Chinese market are copper ores and their concentrates, lithium carbonate and cherries.

The president stressed the “Chile’s determined aspiration to position itself as a food power and penetrate mass consumption niches”, as well as expanding the arrival and participation of small and medium-sized businesses in their country to “to this important market.”

Other objectives of the trip that he mentioned were the opening of Chile to Chinese tourism and the deepening of the relationship in the lithium sector, in which he defended that “The State has to play a fundamental role” as it is a “key industry for the world’s green energy transition.”

The Chilean Foreign Minister, Alberto van Klaveren, indicated that Chile has not had “need to provide certainty because in China there is the impression that Chile presents a stable and resilient environment from an investment point of view” and “There is no doubt about the solidity of the Chilean economy or institutions.”

During his stay in the central city, Boric also met with the provincial secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Wang Xiaohui, the highest authority of Sichuan, Huang Qiang, gave a master class at Sichuan University and visited the Center Technological Institute of Agricultural Innovation and the Lithium Museum.

Before the inauguration of Chile Week, the president told the press that he chose to begin this visit to China in Sichuan, which has more than 80 million inhabitants, because ““We have a lot in common, particularly agricultural production and the development of the mining industry.”

The president is scheduled to arrive in Beijing, where he will participate in the New Silk Roads Forum, China’s main international economic initiative to consolidate its influence through structuring and infrastructure, which this year celebrates its decade.