China will commit credit lines of just under US$10 billion to Latin American countries to support development, but in yuan, its top leader said when addressing a summit of Latin American and Caribbean officials in Beijing on Tuesday.

President Xi Jinping delivered a speech to kick off a ministerial meeting of the China-CELAC Forum, a platform for cooperation between China and Latin American and Caribbean nations.

The credit line, denominated in yuan, appears a push to further internationalise the Chinese currency, as China doubles down on deepening strategic and economic ties with the Latin American region.

During the inaugural China-CELAC Forum in 2015, Beijing offered US$20 billion in credit to be used to help Chinese enterprises invest in infrastructure projects across the continent.

"China is doing a lot more yuan-based deals like this, particularly credit swap agreements that make it easier for the borrowing country to transact in RMB rather than USD," said Eric Orlander, co-founder of the China-Global South Project.

China will also implement a visa-free policy for five Latin American and Caribbean countries, Xi said without detailing which countries they were.

The visa-free policy will be expanded to cover more countries in due course.

Trade between China and Latin America exceeded US$500 billion for the first time last year, Xi said. That was up from the US$450 billion in 2023, and China's trade with Latin America has surged multifold from US$12 billion in 2000.

Xi told Latin American and Caribbean officials it was a great pleasure to have "old and new" friends gather, and reinforced that China supports Latin America and the Caribbean nations to expand their influence in the multilateral arena.

The China-CELAC forum has been a vehicle to deepen dialogue between China and the bloc over trade, investment and infrastructure cooperation under China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

(Reuters)

China commits about $10 billion in credit lines to Latin America