As the international director of the Federation of Chilean Industry, I believe China andChile are free from competition in almost all fronts since their economies can completelycomplement each other. The industrial department in Chile has never treated China as athreat, but sincerely hopes to reinforcebilateral cooperation and exchanges, in a bid toimprove the livelihood of the two peoples.
China secures a rapid development in the past 30 years, with remarkable achievements ineconomic growth, infrastructure construction andpeople’s livelihood. Compared with China,though Chile is a remote and small country with less population, it can serve as the bestplatform for Chinese businesses to access the South American market since Chile, as aglobalized market, has signed a number of free trade agreements with its South Americanpartners.
As thebilateral trade exceeded $30 billion, China has been one of Chile’s top trade partnersfor years. The booming trade also gives a boost to bilateral investment.
Though China’s investment in Chile is less than that in Brazil, Peru and other LatinAmerican partners, there is great potential in the future.
In 2015, amilestone year for bilateral investment, China Construction Bank opened thefirst RMB clearing bank in South America, while Chinese agriculture companies also testedwater in Chilean market by acquiring or cooperating with local producers and exploringexport potential of local agricultural products.
Such cooperation not only brings Chinese people with quality Chilean food, but boosts thecompetitiveness and market share of Chilean businesses in global arena.
Chinese enterprises can also accumulate experience for overseas expansion throughinvesting in Chile. Chile is an open economy that can ensure the maximum benefits for localand foreign companies, where market determines the “rules of the game” and investmentenvironment lives up to international standards.
A number of Chinese telecommunication companies like Huawei have grown into pillars inthe Chilean market. Chilean and Chinese enterprises can communicate more on marketingstrategies, recruitment, employees and development experience, so that Chineseenterprises could better adapt tolocal investment environment.
At present, China-Chile cooperationis more than “mining industry and energy”, but alsoexpands to agriculture, infrastructure, electronic information technologyand other sectors.
Though agricultural modernization in Chile is still in its early stage, we plan to double theexport of agricultural products within five years. Chile requires China’s assistance to realizethis goal since it needs to optimize logistics, infrastructure, telecommunication andrefrigeration. We cherishChina’s experience in advanced technologies.
Toenhance the cooperation and communication with China, Chile has set up a bilateralinvestment and trade promotion committee. Many staff in the committee use Chinese astheir working language.
Chile was the first country in South America to establish diplomatic ties with China. In thepast 46 years, Chile has always been a Latin American pioneer in conductingexchangeswith China. Bilateral political and economic cooperation has been intensified and thenongovernmental exchanges have yielded great achievements as well. I have seen greatopportunity from bilateral cooperation in astronomy and climate change.
For example, Chile has received the most investment in astronomy in the world. Itsastronomy industry accepted $2 billion of investment from 2010 to 2015, and 70 percentto 80 percent of astronomical telescopes in the world are located in Chile.
As far as I know, China also has willingness to further cooperation with Chile in this area.The two countries can realize such cooperation through exchanges among researchinstitutions and communications in new technologies.
Both countries should learn and share experiences with each other. In the future, Chile willsupport China’s leading role in building Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP),maximize the complementary advantages of both sides and build China-Chile cooperationinto a model of China-Latin America collaboration.
People's Daily Pedro Reus |
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