Ecuador sees $5bn investment from China this year

China is ramping up its investment in Ecuador as it looks for opportunities in the South American nation, with bilateral deals this year totalling more than $5 billion, an Ecuadorean minister said on Tuesday. Other investors have been slow to return to Ecuador in the wake of a $3.2bn global bond default in 2008, and Nathalie Cely, the Andean nation's Minister of Coordination of Employment and Competition, said China is by far the biggest investor in the state this year.

Ecuador, the smallest OPpec country, in August signed a $1bn loan deal with resource hungry China for oil and infrastructure projects. In June, it said it had got a credit of $1.7bn from the Export-Import Bank of China to partially finance the construction of a hydropower dam. The more than $5bn figure would mark a huge increase from 2009, when China's direct investment into Ecuador totalled just $56 million, according to data from Ecuador's central bank. Cely, speaking at an event in Tokyo, is in Asia with Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, to promote the country as an investment destination.