China Offers Credit To Latin America To Access Covid-19 Vaccine

Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, said on Wednesday China will grant a credit of one billion dollars so that Latin American and Caribbean countries can access the vaccine against Covid-19 during a virtual meeting with a group of Latin American and Caribbean counterparts.

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The meeting co-chaired by Mexico and China aimed to consolidate international cooperation against the novel coronavirus and jointly address the challenges arising from the pandemic.

Their counterparts from Argentina, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay also participated.

In his speech, Wang thanked the cooperation of Latin America during the crisis for the Covid-19 and highlighted that the vaccine developed in his country would be a public good of universal access, according to the Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretariat in a statement.

Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard, thanked the support of China and Latin America and the Caribbean for the United Nations General Assembly resolution on international cooperation to ensure global access to medicines, vaccines and medical equipment to address Covid-19, which was promoted by Mexico and adopted by consensus with the co-sponsorship of 179 countries.

China is one of several countries forging ahead in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech's experimental vaccine is set to become the country's second – and the world's third – to enter final stage testing later this month.

Last May, China's President Xi Jinping announced that Beijing would provide $2 billion over two years to help countries affected by the pandemic in the economic and social fields, especially developing nations.