Chinese president honors Ecuador’s heroes during visit

World Today

Chinese president honors Ecuador's heroes during visit

Chinese President Xi Jinping has wrapped up a two-day state visit to Ecuador.

During the visit, the two countries signed nearly a dozen financial and commercial agreements. And dedicated Ecuador’s largest hydro-power station built with Chinese backing.

CCTV’s Paulo Cabral reported from Quito.

Chinese president Xi Jinping had a busy schedule on the second and last day of his historic visit to Ecuador. Accompanied by the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Guillaume Long the Chinese leader took part in a ceremony to honor the heroes of Ecuadorian Independence.

Then, he went to his last public event here Quito: a visit to the ECU 911 emergency call and response center. It’s another project made possible by Chinese backing and funding.

While there, Presidents Xi Jinping and Rafael Correa remotely inaugurated the massive Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric power plant, some 200 kilometers down the Andes, in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

The plant was already working at half capacity, with four of its eight turbines running. Now it’s fully online and able to provide over 30 percent of Ecuador’s energy needs. Funded and built with the help of China, it’s considered a prime example of Chinese-Ecuadorian cooperation.

And both leaders made it clear they see much more cooperation in the future.

The next stop for the Chinese president is Peru and the APEC Leaders meeting before ending his three-nation Latin America tour next week.


Sung Wong Sohn on President Xi’s two-day visit to Ecuador

For more on President Xi’s two-day visit to Ecuador, CCTV America’s Mike Walter spoke to Sung Wong Sohn, Professor of economics at California State University.