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Roundup: Argentine ambassador-designate to China highlights bilateral cooperation

Xinhua, February 17, 2016 Adjust font size:

Argentina's ambassador-designate Diego Guelar to China on Tuesday highlighted the vast scope of cooperation between the two countries, vowing to continue to develop relations with China.

"There are between 300 million and 700 million U.S. dollars in projects in each of the provinces, in direct cooperation with China," Guelar said in an interview with local radio station Del Plata.

"There is an enormous network (of projects) that originated from the direct negotiation of the provinces" with the Asian giant, he added.

Guelar was recently designated ambassador by Argentinean President Mauricio Macri, a successor of his predecessor Cristina Kirchner, who forged close ties with China.

While Argentina must "be able to restore its ties with the United States and Europe, it (must) also develop all the potential of the enormous superpower, that is China," Guelar said.

To keep the projects going, said Guelar, the government is "proposing ... to facilitate visas (for the Chinese). We can't say 'let the money flow from China', but dislike the presence of workers arriving from China."

"We have no reason to fear the presence of Chinese tourists, workers or business people," Guelar said.

He recommended Argentineans "explore that (Chinese) culture," adding "our country has served as an extraordinary model of open borders with our neighbors, (and) we set an example."

Among the largest bilateral projects underway in Argentina are two hydroelectric dams in Santa Cruz province in the country's southern Patagonia region -- Nestor Kirchner dam and Jorge Cepernic dam -- being built with a total of 4.71 billion dollars in Chinese financing.

Federico Bodlovic, mayor of Comandante Luis Piedrabuena, a city in Santa Cruz province located close to the project site, recently said, "the province has endorsed the (environmental) studies, they're not projects that were taken on lightly."

"They have been studying (the possibility of building the dams) for 50 years and when (former) president Nestor Kirchner came to power in 2003-2007, the dream began," he said.

The two dams will together help provide 8 percent of Argentina's annual energy needs, estimated to amount to 5,000 gigawatt-hours, and supply more than 1.5 million homes.

Guelar, who was secretary of International Affairs for Macri's Republican Proposal Party, previously served as ambassador to the United States, the European Union and Brazil, during the administrations of presidents Carlos Menem (1989-1999) and Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003). Endi