Guo Wenqing Attends Chilean President Sebastián Piñera's Luncheon Meeting with Chinese Entrepreneurs and Delivers a Speech

Press Center > News Focus

source: Author:中国中冶 Release time:2019-04-29

　　On April 25, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera held a luncheon meeting with Chinese entrepreneurs at Shangri-La Hotel in Beijing. Guo Wenqing, General Manager of China Minmetals, Chairman of MCC and Chinese Chairman of China-Chile Business Council, attended the luncheon meeting and delivered a speech.

　　On behalf of China-Chile Business Council and China Minmetals, Guo Wenqing warmly welcomed Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, former Chilean President Frei, Chilean Foreign Minister Ampuero and Chilean Ambassador to China Schmidt, and expressed his sincere thanks to the entrepreneurs who have made important contributions to the economic and trade development between China and Chile. Guo Wenqing said that the "China-Chile Entrepreneur Luncheon Meeting", one of the important activities of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, aims at in-depth exchange of opinions and suggestions between the two sides and building a grand blueprint for future business contacts.

　　Guo Wenqing pointed out that Chile was the first South American country to establish diplomatic relations with New China. After years of rapid development, China-Chile relations have yielded fruitful results. China has become Chile's largest partner while Chile is China's second largest partner in Latin America. China Minmetals is one of the earliest enterprises to participate in China-Chile economic and trade cooperation. From the first ship of electrolytic copper trade between China and Chile to the signing of a 15-year sales agreement with Codelco, China-Chile relations become much deeper, which is witnessed by China Minmetals. In 2015, China Minmetals and MCC, the two Fortune Global 500 companies, implemented strategic restructuring, and took the lead to develop the whole industry chain in the global metal mining industry, covering resource acquisition, exploration, design, construction, mining, mineral processing, smelting, logistics and trade. As the first state-owned capital investment company in China's metal mining industry, it is committed to building China Minmetals into a metal and mining company that is “the first in China and the first class in the world”. At present, the scale of assets under its management amount to RMB 1.86 trillion. In 2018, the business income exceeded RMB 500 billion, with the profits reaching a record high. MCC is a pioneer and major force in the steel industry, and the "national team" in the metallurgy industry in China. It has great strength in metallurgical design construction and infrastructure construction. China Minmetals sincerely expects to play a greater role in Chile's metal mining, international trade, metallurgical engineering, and infrastructure construction, and to carry out more cooperation.

　　Sebastián Piñera said that China was one of the most important economies in the world and Chile's largest trade partner. Although Chile and China are far apart, they have profound friendship and good cooperation. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Chile and China 50 years ago, bilateral relations have made significant progress. Chile is rich in mineral resources, forest resources and fishery resources. It has stable political environment and globalized, free and healthy economic environment. In the past 20 years, technical innovation has brought great changes to Chile in many fields. Chile is ready to meet the challenges and opportunities brought by the fourth industrial revolution and will promote regional connectivity in building the Belt and Road. Chile hopes to learn from China's successful experience in innovative development and green development, and deepen and expand relevant cooperation. It is committed to safeguarding multilateralism and the multilateral trading system, and cooperates closely with China in regional and multilateral affairs. It continues to play an exemplary role in China - Latin America relations, and further opens up the broad prospects for cooperation between Chile and China.

　　Jiao Jian, Deputy General Manager of China Minmetals, and Zhang Mengxing, President of China MCC, spoke as representatives of China-Chile Business Council. The representatives of Moutai Group, China Eastern, Changyu, China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co., Ltd., Pingtan Marine Enterprise, Ltd., Luzhou Laojiao, Ctrip, Joyvio Group, Yutong, Huawei, China Information Communication Technologies Corporation, China Harbor, BYD, China Railway Group Limited, and China Railway Construction Corporation Limited as well as more than 10 government and enterprise representatives from Chile spoke in turn. All of them said that they would continue to play the role as a bridge to further strengthen the cooperation with China and Chile, deepen cooperation levels and contribute to the promotion of bilateral economic and trade cooperation between China and Chile.

　　After the meeting, Guo Wenqing held talks with Francisco Silva, Chile's Chairman of the China-Chile Business Council. They had in-depth exchanges on further playing the role of China-Chile Business Council and promoting more targeted and efficient business cooperation between China and Chile.

　　Guo Wenqing pointed out that the China-Chile Entrepreneur Luncheon Meeting had achieved the expected good results. The two sides treated each other honestly and exchanged the needed goods, laying good foundation and providing convenient conditions for further cooperation. Guo Wenqing stressed that with the vision of "world first-class metal mining enterprise" and the strategic positioning of "main force of resource guarantee, national team of metallurgical construction and industry comprehensive service provider", China Minmetals is now building up its four beams and eight columns covering metal mining, metallurgical construction, trade and logistics, finance and real estate. China Minmetals hopes to receive support from Chile in related areas as always, and to find opportunities for cooperation in mineral resource exploitation and utilization, and urban infrastructure construction, so as to jointly promote the companies of the two countries to achieve win-win cooperation in multiple and specialized areas.

　　Francisco Silva thanked Guo Wenqing for his warm reception, affirmed the significance of China-Chile Entrepreneur Luncheon Meeting, and conveyed President Sebastián Piñera's high appraisal to the Meeting. Francisco Silva said that Chile hoped to jointly develop more cooperation projects with high additional value together with China Minmetals on the basis of expanding their cooperation in metal resources. Those projects not only contribute to the international operation of China Minmetals Corporation but also build new growth points for the economic and social development of Chile.

　　Zhang Zhaoxiang, Deputy General Manager of China Minmetals, and General Manager of MCC, attended the relevant activities. Related personnel of the relevant headquarter departments and subsidiaries of China Minmetals also attended the relevant activities.