China and Colombia have signed an agreement that will include Bogota in President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, state media in Beijing reported.
The agreement was concluded during a meeting of leaders from the region in the Chinese capital, during which Xi pledged a $9.2 billion loan for "development," AFP reported.
After a meeting between Xi and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, "the two heads of state witnessed the signing of a cooperation plan between the two governments for the joint construction of the 21st Century Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road," the state news agency Xinhua reported.
Xi called on the two countries to "take advantage of the opportunity provided by Colombia's official accession to the high-quality Belt and Road Initiative to promote the improvement of the quality of cooperation," Xinhua reported.
Posting a video of the signing on social media, Petro wrote that "the history of our foreign relations is changing."
"From now on, Colombia will interact with the whole world on the basis of equality and freedom," Petro said.
Two-thirds of Latin American countries have already joined Beijing's trillion-dollar infrastructure program, and China has overtaken the US as the largest trading partner of Brazil, Peru, and Chile.
The Belt and Road Initiative is a central pillar of Xi's efforts to expand his country's economic and political influence abroad.
For more than a decade, it has provided investment for infrastructure and other large-scale projects around the world, offering Beijing political and economic influence in return. | BGNES