The Agency’s director, Cristián Rodríguez, held a series of bilateral meetings with important Chinese companies such as China Three Gorges, State Power Investment Corporation, State Grid and China Huaneng Group.

The director of InvestChile, Cristián Rodríguez, traveled to Beijing and Shanghai to participate in the fifth version of ChileWeek. The Agency’s activities sought principally to promote a portfolio of 150 public projects to be implemented through to 2023, worth over US$18,600 million, in sectors such as infrastructure, tourism, mining and energy.

In addition, the Agency organized sector-specific workshops to analyze business opportunities in three areas: lithium, energy and transport. The lithium workshop was led by Pablo Terrazas, executive vice-president of the government’s Economic Development Agency (CORFO), and focused on analyzing the terms and conditions of the so-called “Lithium call”, a tender that will allow companies presenting the best value-added projects for the industry to obtain the mineral at a special price. (The tender will close in January 2020.).

At the energy workshop, the head of the Energy Ministry’s Project Support Division, Pablo Caulier, spoke about opportunities in the sector for foreign investors, particularly in renewables. The director of the Chile Image Foundation, Constanza Cea, also spoke at this workshop.

The transport workshop was addressed by the coordinator of tenders at the Undersecretariat for Transport, Santiago Larraín, as well as by former President Eduardo Frei, who now serves as Chile’s Special Ambassador for Asia-Pacific. This workshop included details of the bidding process for fleet suppliers to Santiago’s Metropolitan Public Transport System.

Cristián Rodríguez and his team also held a series of bilateral meetings with important local companies that included China Three Gorges, State Power Investment Corporation, SPIC (the owners of Pacific Hydro), State Grid, China Huaneng Group, Foton Motor and Datang.

Finally, on Monday, September 2, a seminar on “New Investment Opportunities for Chinese Companies” took place in Shanghai. At this seminar, InvestChile not only promoted the public tenders but also drew attention to the positive outlook for Chinese investment in Chile. The seminar was opened by Minister of Agriculture Antonio Walker. Other speakers included Chile’s ambassador to China, Luis Schmidt, and a representative of China Tianying Inc. (CNTY), who referred to this company’s operation in Chile through its subsidiary KDM.

According to Cristián Rodríguez, “Chinese companies are increasingly interested in entering the Chilean market and a good example of this is the evolution of the Chinese projects supported by InvestChile. From five projects for US$310 million in 2016, the portfolio had expanded to 20 projects for more than US$1,800 million by the end of 2018. Our work focuses on seeing this figure increase further and this was already reflected in the first half of this year, with 23 Chinese projects in our portfolio, totaling more than US$2,100 million.”

This year’s version of ChileWeek, an activity organized by ProChile, included the participation of a public-private delegation led by former President Eduardo Frei in his role as Special Ambassador for Asia-Pacific, the Undersecretary of International Economic Relations, Rodrigo Yáñez, and the director general of ProChile, Jorge O’Ryan.