Argentine FM lauds China's development policy as 'consistent, coherent, long term'

BUENOS AIRES - Argentinian Foreign Affairs Minister Susana Malcorra on Monday praised China's development policy as "consistent and coherent in the long term."

Speaking at a seminar held at the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange on China's role in Latin American industry, Malcorra said the Asian giant has made notable progress in the last three decades in keeping with its own farsighted development programs.

"While in the 1980s, Latin America's GDP (gross domestic product) surpassed China's by 150 percent, in 2013 it represented 60 percent of China's GDP," said Malcorra, who will travel to China on Wednesday, accompanying President Mauricio Macri to attend Group of 20 (G20) Summit.

The 11th G20 summit is to be held on Sept 4-5 in China's eastern city of Hangzhou under the theme of "Toward an Innovative, Invigorated, Interconnected and Inclusive World Economy."

The minister called for greater efforts to understand and learn "what it means to have ties with China, a country that plans for the long term."

"China is consistent and coherent in the long term. Food security is one of the major issues that concerns many regions of the world, including China, and that is an opportunity for the region," said Malcorra.

"If we begin to understand its long-term outlook, perhaps we can forge a position for the region that will facilitate the relationship," she said.

China is Argentina's second largest trade partner, after Brazil, and main export destination for agrifoods, and the two countries have elevated ties to the level of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

At the same event, Lucio Castro, secretary of productive transformation at the Ministry of Production, also underscored bilateral ties with the Asian country, saying "China is an important, essential partner of Argentina's."

"As President Mauricio Macri has noted, we are going through a new stage, marked by more balanced trade," said Castro.

"The relationship with China is important, because the national productive plan aims for an intelligent insertion into the world, taking care of employment, and because the focus of the plan is to try to break with a growth scheme based on crises, currency exchange adjustments and collapsed wages instead of competitivity," said Castro.

"China presents a challenge and an opportunity for Argentina, due to its structural change from an export-driven economy to a consumer-driven one," Castro said.