Trade envoy: Connection helps Chile's economy

The Belt and Road Initiative is a confident approach to global connectivity, with great potential to promote trade, said Andreas Pierotic, trade commissioner of the Chilean embassy in China.

Chile was an early booster of the BRI in Latin America, he noted, and it remains a strong supporter.

"We believe there is great potential in promoting bilateral projects in infrastructure connectivity," he said. "Latin America is a large region, and we need better roads, better tunnels, airports and harbors that will allow Latin America's products, which are very popular in China, to be better connected with China."

Pierotic said the two countries have been working closely on infrastructure projects and enhancing digital connectivity under the BRI.

"Financial issues are also important for us under the framework of BRI," he added. "We're working a lot on the connections between the two peoples, think tanks and education institutions. If people are better connected, economic connectivity can also be improved."

Chile is an important trade partner with China in Latin America. According to figures from China's Ministry of Commerce, bilateral trade reached $42.8 billion last year, an increase of 24 percent year-on-year, accounting for almost one-third of Chile's total foreign trade.

Chile mainly exports mineral and forestry products to China, and it mainly imports textiles, light industrial products, electronics and machinery from China.

Speaking of bilateral trade volume last year, Pierotic said it was an enormous increase from just $8 billion in 2006 - the year that the two countries signed a free trade agreement, the first between a Latin American country and China.

Pierotic said the free trade agreement has greatly boosted exports of Chilean products to China, such as fruit and salmon, and the import of Chinese electronics and automobiles to Chile.

Wei Jianguo, vice-president of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said in an earlier interview that China-Chile economic and trade cooperation could be further enriched, which is conducive to deepening ties with Latin America.

Wei said China is seeing increasing demand for Chile's agricultural products, and partnerships in e-commerce has great potential.

Q&A with Andreas Pierotic

What are the key areas in which the Belt and Road Initiative can benefit Chile and South America? Conversely, how can Chile benefit the BRI?

One pillar of the Belt and Road Initiative is trade. In the case of the BRI, there has been financial backup for improving logistics between Chile and China. Chile has been the largest provider of fresh fruit to China for two years. Although we are so far apart, we can still do this because we have been building airports in Chile that can help bring more fresh fruit to China. It is clear that we have been able to develop this kind of infrastructure because there is support from Chinese financial institutions to enhance such cooperation. The improvement of logistics is absolutely going to help our trade. The contribution from Chile now is to set the pace of different areas of cooperation with China in the Belt and Road, and the rest Latin America is going to be following and looking at us. This year, we are hosting APEC, and President Xi Jinping is expected to come in November. The main thing that we want from this APEC is to send a message to the world about the importance of international trade, free trade and multilateralism.