MW-BS970_copper_MG_20140121140716.jpg (Photo : www.marketwatch.com)
According to Jorge Heine, Chile's ambassador to China, Chile's mining industry is a budding investment prospect for China that has yet to be tapped.
Heine explained that the investment relationship between Chile and China will not only be limited to copper despite playing as a consumer and supplier in the industry.
In 2013, Chile produced 31.5 percent or 5.78 million metric tons of the world's total copper production. Almost 42 percent of the world's copper investment had been accounted to Chile, a number that corresponds to a global share of 27.5 percent of copper reserves.
Chile is known as the heart of South America's mining industry due to its copper production.
In 2013, Chile's exports to China grew by 5 percent amounting to $19.1 billion. Out of this total, 79 percent was copper imports.
Chile's export of minerals to China, excluding copper, in the same year amounted to about $4 billion, a rise of 12 percent year-on-year. These exports accounted for 21 percent of the total exports of Chile to China.
According to government figures, Chile is the top producer of nitrates, iodine and lithium in the world. The South American country is also the third-largest producer of molybdenum and the eighth-largest producer of silver in the world.
Chile is hoping for more Chinese companies to invest in agriculture, according to Andreas Pierotic, minister counselor for economic and commercial affairs with Chile's embassy in China.
Pierotic also said that technology company Lenovo Group Ltd. and the largest oil and food importer and exporter in China, COFCO Ltd., are both investing in the agricultural sector of Chile.
"We believe that Chinese companies' presence in Chile through investment and joint ventures in the mining sector is a new phase of bilateral relations that will enhance ties," said Pierotic.
