Interview: Argentine president highlights China's "enormous importance, complementarity"

Argentine President Mauricio Macri believes the upcoming G20 summit will provide an opportunity to review cooperation between Argentina and China, lauding China's "enormous importance" and "complementarity" to his country.

The Argentine leader spoke with Xinhua on Wednesday on the bilateral relations in the lead up to the Group of 20 (G20) summit to be hosted by China on Sept. 4-5 in its eastern city of Hangzhou.

Macri, who has been in office for nearly nine months, said his administration "began with the vision to once again form part of the global scenario, and to that end our link with China is a link we give enormous importance to."

As part of the push to boost its global presence, Argentina has participated in key international forums.

"We have taken part, with the Chinese president, in the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington (in April) and we are going to meet again during my first G20 summit as president," said Macri.

Besides the G20 gathering, more high-level meetings are in the planning, he said. "I think in the first quarter of next year I am going to make an official visit to China with a very clear agenda: to continue to expand infrastructure projects. In the area of energy in particular, there is an agreement with China in operation (and) there is another in train logistics."

As a leading agricultural exporter, Argentina hopes to take advantage of its comprehensive strategic partnership with China to expand exports and boost other economic segments, such as tourism, in addition to stepping up cooperation in other areas, like football.

Macri said his administration will work to promote "reciprocity, increasing Argentine exports of greater value-added goods to China. We hope the talks will lead to mechanisms so that, based on this relationship, Argentina can balance the scales with more labor intensive products and at the same time find ways to generate greater tourism flows between Argentina and China."

While more than 100 million Chinese travel the globe annually, "very few come to Argentina, some 30,000 a year. We hope to add a couple of more zeroes to that number," said Macri.

"In Washington, I proposed to the Chinese president that we find ways to increase (tourism) flow, as well as social and sports exchange. I'm betting a lot on exchange in football, which Argentina is passionate about and China is increasingly passionate about. Argentina wants to be China's partner in developing professional football," said the president.

China is the South American country's second largest trading partner, and leading export market for food products.

Macri said what he wants most is to focus on "finding a way to increase exchanges in both directions," based on the two countries' complementarity.

"There are complementary capacities. China needs to work on its food security and Argentina is a very good partner for that. Argentina needs more energy and China is a very good partner for that. Argentina needs to significantly improve its infrastructure and China has been very successful in building new infrastructure. This complementarity should work very well," said Macri.

"We really value Chinese companies' capacity to build infrastructure and hope they value our capacity to produce food, to be able to increase the flow of exports to balance things out. That's our goal for the next few years," said Macri.

"What we have to do is expand what we are doing," said the president, listing existing projects, such as hydroelectric and nuclear plants being built in Argentina with Chinese help, and trade in agrifood.

Asked about China's relations with Latin America in general, Macri said "China has had a very aggressive stance to succeed in building a presence in Latin America, and Argentina is very pleased to see China has the possibility of strategic development ahead. We want to accompany the Chinese government in that process, and we hope it generates employment opportunities in both China and Argentina." Endi