Argentine President Fernandez Starts Official Visit to China

On Friday, Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez arrived in Beijing to fulfill a busy agenda before meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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After being welcomed by Ambassador Wu Jie, Fernandez was virtually awarded an Honoris Causa at Tsinghua University. He visited then the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party, where he signed the visitors' honorary book. Later, he attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

President Fernandez will visit the Forbidden City Palace Museum and lay a wreath at the mausoleum of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square.

On Saturday, the President will pay a visit to the Great Hall of the People for a lunch offered to honor the leaders attending the Olympic Games. He will also meet with the Argentine Olympic delegation at the Zhangjiakou Village. Afterward, he will have a virtual meeting with the representatives of the Latin American diplomatic missions.

His meeting with Xi will take place on Sunday and will be the first face-to-face meeting between both leaders. The Argentine delegation is expected to make progress during this trip on cooperation projects in transport and energy infrastructure, whereby this South American country hopes to join the "New Silk Road."

Previously, the Fernandez administration and the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) signed a contract to build Argentina's fourth nuclear power plant, Atucha III, which involve a US$8.3 billion investment.

Currently, trade relations between these countries are quite intense. In 2020, for example, Argentina imported Chinese goods worth over US$8 billion and exported its products to the Asian country for an amount of US$5 billion.