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40p...?
Are you kidding...?
Cheapskate ;-)
They are like locusts… or door step lenders… offering credit to the desperate, in return for taking their valuable assets.
Still…….. offer 40p and they can have my shares as well…
In addition to loans from Chinese state-owned banks and politicians, Ecuador was the first Latin American country to receive financing from the Chinese-controlled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Prior to beginning talks with Ecuador, China had already signed a number of free trade agreements in the region, most notably with Peru, Costa Rica, and Chile. The FTA with Chile came into force in October 2006; with Peru in March 2010; and with Costa Rica in August 2011.
So far, China’s objective seems to be to establish preferential trade relations with countries that look toward the Pacific, as evidenced by the talks it has held with Colombia and El Salvador, for example.
The most striking case is that of Uruguay, where there have already been certain announcements and technical meetings with a view to a possible FTA, which would be in line with China’s approach toward Latin America. According to Uruguayan specialist Ignacio Bartesaghi, “geopolitically, it is very convenient for China to sign an FTA with Uruguay.”
Ecuador is China’s next step in Latin America; it remains to be seen which country will come after that.
Currently, joint trade between Ecuador and China is worth over $10 billion. Until the first half of 2022, China was Ecuador’s main non-oil trade partner.
The trade agreement with China has foreseen sensitivities in the agricultural and industrial sectors, establishing a significant number of exclusions, particularly in the area of manufacturing, as well as long tariff reduction periods.
On the other hand, tariff-free access for raw materials, inputs, tools, and equipment reduces production costs for Ecuadorian industry and will offer greater variety and quality for Ecuadorian consumers.
This agreement establishes mechanisms in the sanitary and phytosanitary field to speed up market access processes. It also includes provisions on trade defense and trade facilitation that enable the possibility of establishing measures to protect Ecuadorian industry and implement a better exchange of information.
The productive sector in Ecuador participated actively in the negotiation, providing inputs and information to strengthen the negotiating team’s strategy.
The signing of the Ecuador-China Free Trade Agreement will take place after the completion of the respective processes of formalization of the offers, translations, and legal review. The date will be announced by both governments in due course.
Relations between the two countries are long-standing and deepened especially during the government of leftist Rafael Correa (in office 2007-2017), who turned to China after Ecuador defaulted on its international debt and ran out of foreign credit.
China thus managed to position itself as Ecuador’s main creditor. Most of the Chinese credit has gone to financing six hydroelectric projects worth $3 billion. Part of the debt was also linked to future oil sales. PetroEcuador, the government company, has been supplying oil to China’s state-owned PetroChina at a discount as part of Ecuador’s debt repayment.
In September 2022, with Guillermo Lasso in power, Ecuador managed to restructure a portion of the Chinese debt, which amounted to $4.4 billion. The agreement was reached directly with China’s policy banks, the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China, which together have provided more than $18 billion in loans to Ecuador since 2010.
The debt restructuring is a paradigmatic case for other Latin American countries, such as Argentina and Venezuela, which could follow suit with respect to Chinese debt.
Ecuador and China Conclude Free Trade Agreement Negotiations
Ten months after President Lasso’s visit to Beijing, the two countries have completed the technical talks on their FTA.
After four rounds of negotiations and dozens of technical meetings, the Chinese and Ecuadorian teams successfully closed negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries at the technical level.
The FTA was negotiated over the course of 10 months, following the roadmap set out by Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso during his official visit to Beijing in February 2022. The roadmap focused on reducing tariffs to allow market access and also included trade policies such as rules of origin, improvement of customs procedures and trade facilitation, trade defense, protocols for sanitary and phytosanitary measures, reduction of technical barriers to trade, investment cooperation, promotion of e-commerce, competition, transparency, dispute settlement, and economic cooperation.
The entry into force of this trade agreement will allow preferential access for 99 percent of Ecuador’s current exports to China, mainly agricultural and agro-industrial products such as shrimp, bananas, roses and flowers, cocoa, and coffee, among the main ones. It will also open the doors to exports of non-traditional exports from Ecuador, such as pitahaya, pineapple, mango, blueberries, processed foods, fresh and canned fruit, and a large number of other agricultural and agro-industrial products.
The FTA will improve access for Ecuador’s exports to a market of more than 1.4 billion consumers, thus boosting exports, employment, economic growth, and investment.
Copperpot chill and hold fast
Utter rubbish! You only have to look at trading volumes to see these nonsensical comments
purely NOT TRUE.
I pity the fools that recommend this cr@p, maybe they have a agenda too!
Merger confirmed Monday. First bid RNS Friday.
Happy new year one and all.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3922288-copper-bounces-as-chinese-stimulus-plans-lift-demand-hopes?mailingid=30160760&messageid=2900&serial=30160760.1838&utm_campaign=rta-stock-news&utm_content=link-1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha&utm_term=30160760.1838
https://www.kitco.com/news/2023-01-03/Copper-could-reach-10-as-markets-gears-up-for-commodity-supercycle-Gianni-Kovacevic.html
Yep hope so Eish
Heck, we seem to be glued to 16p! Hope the 9th sorts this to the up-side!
Thank you!
E.T,never know my friend
@Jerry, which tweet?
Morning all President Lasso was also at the Whitehouse in December
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/12/19/readout-of-president-bidens-meeting-with-president-guillermo-lasso-of-ecuador/
Pinot
:0)
Colonel. See the tweet by Willem Middelkoop.
Bubble2021 is it the auto bots or the deceptions?
At end of the day, it's win win for the US and the globe as a whole if we see more mines like Alpala fast tracked into production. There is a massive copper shortage around the corner and the electrification of cars in particular is going to be held up through lack of supplies not unlike the chip manufacturers of today post covid. The US has been over protective of it's own car industry and gas guzzlers to care too much but by lowering gas demand/oil etc in future they will be removing a lot of money from Putin and Middle East.... hence you'd think they would be keen to get motoring with copper supplies. South America is a bit of a hot bed at the moment so if Ecuador were to emerge as global mine / resources exporter then it might help the US put the likes of Chile and Peru back in their box. Lots of pros and cons. The next few years should see massive infrastructure spend as per Biden's trillion dollar bill and Chinese promises to build their way out of economic gloom. All points to the likes of Alpala/ENSA being in high demand. But this sad old casino stock market is more keen on playing with invented resources like Bitcoin et al. In this new world it's far easier to imitate and replicate the original than try and discover it. A Fake world in every way with people paying £1000's for branded t-shirt that is made form same cotton as a £2 t-shirt or examples of paying £177m (per YEAR) for a geriatric footballer!! Hard to make sense of it these days.
Autobots lovin the trading today ....
Good posts Fort. I do also wonder whether politically this is quite a savvy move for Lasso with an eye on re-election. The thinking behind that being as he is someone who is right/centre-right in Ecuador, the expectation is that this generally leads to closer ties with the US (or 'the West'). Through signing this trade deal with the Chinese, he takes away some of the political ammunition from his opponents on the left, and opens the door for serious state-sponsored investment from the East.
That might be a very blunt analysis as my knowledge of Ecuadorian politics is hardly a strong suit. If any of our posters on the ground have any further insight I'm all ears.
The chinese are fast becoming Lasso's best friends. Personally speaking, I think Lasso would be wise to keep 'competitive' bidding alive and well as it's the one thing that will keep the chinese grounded and paying fair price rather than getting everything on cheap.
BHP might not get a look in at all if Lasso has already 'leveraged' Alpala in some deal or another. Remember.... SOLG are just the licence holder and Ecuador own Alpala and it's their say so / red tape that will either sanction development or make the operators life a misery. We are just shareholders and many of us won't be here in 20 years time but Ecuador's mining future and future partners will be so important to understand the bigger picture here. I guess it comes down to... does Lasso want international mining companies like BHP, Anglo and others or does he want a heavily weighted chinese cartel with sprinkles of minor international company interest or both and is the latter possible??
Completely agrees Fort, however the first copper play Mike Henry referenced in a November interview I recall was SOLG when asked about their pivot in mining strategy and that was after big bad Bob publicly winding them up so there must be some interest still. They've come this far and although I think there are higher powers pulling the levers here now, BHP must now be thinking about their options once the Chinese bid lands. Thought it was strange of WI to say we were at stage 2.9 of a 3 stage process a few weeks ago on Twitter, but he's on the inside of this and it's starting to make sense. Not long now... added another 100k on Tuesday for the third final time :-)
Soon. All the very best for 23 all. C
Might just be my positive outlook of late for SOLG but surely I can't be the only one that sees recent 'chinese/ecuador' news along with a bucket load of red tape being cut up as a little coincidental with SOLG entering the potential 'sale' phase. Let's be quite clear here, the current producing mines in Ecuador are delivering 'not very much' for lasso et al. The only asset in Ecuador right now that could transform the mining industry several times over is of course ... SOLG's Alpala.
Last May/June BHP met up with Lasso for a cosy chat. A month to two later, BHP decide they would go for Oz Minerals. A month after that, SOLG suddenly adopted a fast and smart approach and got the chinese involved. Just a hunch... but I think even Lasso might be tired of BHP's games and with a little guidance from his business partners (inc Maxit et al) Ecuador appears ready to see the Chinese take the mining industry forward... with speed one would presume.
When you read between the lines, it does look like Lasso has decided which way he wants to go. That might not work out well for us if other interested parties know that the chinese have the highest senior Ecuadorian backing.
Pro's and con's with this but if I were BHP and genuinely interested in taking Alpala forwards, I'd be pretty worried now. It's slipping away from them faster than even they thought possible. The advancements (politically and via SOLG's Oct merger news) has been breath-taking. Fast and smart indeed!
I guess the question is... will the chinese be paying fair price or will Lasso be happy with them gaining a discount in return for more rapid progress??
The big boys are in the mix now.