The Secretary of the Presidency, Álvaro Delgado, and the ministers: Francisco Bustillo (Foreign Relations) and Azucena Arbeleche (Economy) received a delegation from the Government of the People’s Republic of China.
The delegation from the Asian giant was made up of the director general for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cai Wei.
Speaking to the press, Cai Wei pointed out that there is a will to affirm the bilateral relationship.
“The Chinese side is open to cooperation, both with MERCOSUR as a whole, and with a particular member country,” he said.
He added: “We would like to further deepen mutually beneficial cooperation through many ways, including a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), with the premise of non-interference in the internal affairs of MERCOSUR.”
He stressed that Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina are also good friends of China.
Cai Wei highlighted the completion of the joint pre-feasibility study of a China-Uruguay FTA and bilateral cooperation on free trade has achieved positive results in stages.
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For his part, Bustillo said that Uruguay will continue negotiating and is taking steps in that direction.
“We hope and predict that at some point the rest of the member countries of MERCOSUR will join. There are intentions for Argentina and Paraguay to join and for Brazil to definitively promote the work of Uruguay. We hope to achieve it during this period of government”, remarked the Chancellor of the Republic.
He recalled that in 1988 the Government headed by Julio María Sanguinetti began negotiations, and began diplomatic bilateral relations with the Asian country and then the successive administrations advanced in the same direction. “We are going to continue putting our grain of sand.”
