The state-owned company China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC) will build a photovoltaic solar energy plant in Nicaragua with a capacity of 67.3 megawatts, the government of the Central American country reported this Monday.
The solar energy project will be implemented with a Chinese loan for 80 million dollars, Vice President Rosario Murillo told official media.
Officials from the Nicaraguan Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit participated in China in the signing of the commitment, said Murillo, wife of President Daniel Ortega.
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The design, supply and construction of the photovoltaic generation plant will be developed in “El Hato”, in Ciudad Darío, in the northern department of Matagalpa, he added.
The presidential advisor for the Promotion of Investments, Trade and International Cooperation, Laureano Ortega Murillo, who virtually joined the signing of the contract, said that the CCCC company will also build another solar energy plant and that between them they will generate more than 130 megawatts.
“These are historic, extraordinary moments for the country, within the framework of the development of the brotherly relationship between Nicaragua and China,” said Ortega Murillo, son of the president and the vice president.
The Chinese company will build another plant with a capacity of 63 megawatts and with an investment of 82 million dollars, in San Isidro, in the department of Matagalpa, according to a contract signed in 2023, he told official media.
For his part, the president of CCCC, Wang Tongzhou, indicated that they will increase their investments in the Central American country to “make the most of our competitiveness in infrastructure and make more contributions to the friendship between China and Nicaragua.”
Last December, China and Nicaragua agreed to elevate their relations to the level of “strategic partnership,” after a telephone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ortega.
Nicaragua and China launched a Free Trade Agreement in January.
In 2021, Managua established relations with China after breaking with Taiwan, considered by Beijing as its own territory whose control it must regain, even by force if necessary.
Since then, the world’s second largest economy has supported the Nicaraguan government, which faces sanctions and condemnation by the United States and European countries after the 2018 protests against Ortega, which left more than 300 dead according to the UN.
The two governments agreed that, as part of their strategic partnership, they will strengthen “exchanges and cooperation” also in security and technology.
The Chinese government and companies will also participate in the construction of popular housing, road, airport, railway and energy infrastructure projects.
