UPDATE 1-China lends Argentina $7.5 billion for power, rail projects
Fri Jul 18, 2014 9:27pm EDT
(Recasts after deals signed, adds president's comment)
By Eliana Raszewski
(Reuters) - Argentina signed deals on Friday to borrow $7.5 billion from China at a time when the Latin American country cannot tap global capital markets because of disputes over unpaid debt.
Among the deals signed, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and her Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed on a loan for $4.7 billion from the China Development Bank for the construction of two hydroelectric dams in Patagonia. China Gezhouba Group Corp and Argentina's Electroingenieria SA won contracts last year to build the two dams, which will have a combined generating capacity of 1,740 megawatts.
The Chinese bank also granted a $2.1 billion loan to help finance a long-delayed railway project that would make it more efficient to transport grains from Argentina's agricultural plains to its ports.
"It's a day we can define as foundational in the relations between our two countries," Fernandez said after signing the deals.
China is Argentina's second-largest trading partner after neighbor Brazil. In 2013, Argentina's trade deficit with the Asian country increased more than 20 percent to $5.8 billion.
Argentina is the world's third-largest exporter of soy and corn. China is the main buyer of its soybeans.
Xi, China's first president to visit Latin America's third-largest economy in a decade, arrived in the capital city of Buenos Aires on Friday after participating in a summit of emerging economies of the BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - in Fortaleza, Brazil, earlier this week.
He also signed a three-year agreement for an $11 billion swap operation between the central banks of Argentina and China that will let the Latin American country pay for Chinese imports with the yuan currency.
"The exchange will mainly serve to facilitate investments in the currency of the country providing the funds and to strengthen the level of international reserves," the Argentine central bank said in a statement.
Argentina signed a similar deal with China in 2009.
The central bank could ask for the total or partial disbursement of the 70 billion yuan in exchange for pesos to invest it, or to exchange it to dollars to fuel its reserves, said an Argentine central bank official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Fernandez's government has imposed stringent import and capital controls to safeguard dwindling foreign reserves, which it needs to pay its debts. It has been virtually shut out of global credit markets since staging a massive 2002 default.
Hopes that Argentina's government might access markets again soon hinge on the country reaching a deal with holdout creditors who rejected its debt restructuring in 2005 and 2010.
Fernandez said the deal between the two central banks could offer "stability in exchange rates at the moment we are, as a country, suffering speculative attacks by vulture funds."
($1 = 6.2075 Chinese Yuan) (Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh, Jorge Ataola and Richard Lough; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Richard Chang and Jan Paschal)
China provides $4 billion credit line to Venezuela
CARACAS, July 21 Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:14pm EDT
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(Reuters) - China will provide Venezuela with a $4 billion credit line under an agreement signed on Monday, with the money to be repaid by oil shipments from OPEC member Venezuela.
The deal was inked during a 24-hour visit to Venezuela by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is on a tour of Latin America.
The money will go into the Joint Chinese-Venezuela Fund, which focuses on infrastructure and economic development in the South American country.
President Nicolas Maduro said the Venezuelan government would also put $1 billion into the fund.
The government said on Sunday the fund has about $40 billion in it, though it was not clear if that included the amounts covered by Monday's agreement.
Officials said the credit would be repaid by shipments of about 100,000 barrels per day of crude and products.
No other terms were given.
Under the leadership of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, Venezuela vastly expanded its use of loan-for-oil agreements with China, which helped ease stretched state finances while also improving the cash flow of state oil company PDVSA.
Chavez's successor, Nicolas Maduro, who won election last year after Chavez died from cancer, has continued that policy.
A statement from PDVSA said Venezuela is now sending about 524,000 bpd to China, a figure expected to rise to 1 million bpd by 2016.
Bilateral trade between Venezuela and China has soared to $19.2 billion annually, compared with just $183 million in 1998, the year Chavez came to power, officials said.
Chinese entities participate in transport, housing, education, electricity, communication and vehicle-assembly projects in Venezuela. (Reporting by Andrew Cawthorne, Eyanir Chinea and Deisy Buitrago; Editing by Peter Galloway)
Block by block dismantling the West

right about now. 

ish time in global politics.

