Member Info for Ortherncopper

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.

The Article is dated today..

Let’s hope this paragraph is relevant..

For China, Ecuador offers an opportunity to diversify sources of strategic minerals, such as copper and iron ore, Jiang said. "It is expected that more Chinese companies will expand investment in Ecuador following the agreement," Jiang said.

The negotiations between China and Ecuador on a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) have proceeded smoothly, Mao Ning, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said on Wednesday during a press conference.

The response came after the ministry was asked if it could confirm that the two countries may sign an FTA.

With the deal, Ecuador's exports will get preferential access to China, and the South American country's manufacturers will be able to acquire machinery and other products at a lower cost.

The agreement will allow preferential access for 99 percent of Ecuador's exports to China, especially agricultural products such as shrimps, bananas, roses and flowers, cocoa and coffee, Ecuador's production ministry said in a statement.

Jiang Shixue, professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at Shanghai University, said that the deal gives full play to the economic complementarities of both countries.

"It will help Ecuador's agricultural products get easier access to the massive Chinese market," Jiang told the Global Times on Wednesday.

For China, Ecuador offers an opportunity to diversify sources of strategic minerals, such as copper and iron ore, Jiang said. "It is expected that more Chinese companies will expand investment in Ecuador following the agreement," Jiang said.

China and Ecuador began negotiations in February 2022, according to Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM). Bilateral trade rose by 44.5 percent to reach $10.95 billion in 2021 and China remained the second-largest trading partner for Ecuador.

Ecuador is an important partner of China in investment and trade in Latin America. Their cooperation covers a wide range of areas, including electricity, energy, mining and transportation.

The FTA deal would also have a spillover effect to deepen cooperation between China and other Latin American countries, Jiang said.

The conclusion of the China-Ecuador free trade negotiations comes as the latest FTA deal between China and a Latin American country.

China previously signed free trade agreements with Chile, Costa Rica and Peru.

In October 2006, the China-Chile FTA came into effect, the first free trade agreement signed between China and a Latin American country. Subsequently, the China-Peru FTA entered into force in March 2010, and the China-Costa Rica FTA went into effect in August 2011.

Since the agreements took effect, the three countries have seen their annual exports to China grow by double-digits, according to the MOFCOM.

Price of gold will see to that

Ingo did create and register a Swiss investment vehicle if my memory is correct… maybe for that reason?

The Bozi solution.

I’m guessing the only other option is a JV of around 90%, with our funding commitments deferred to production and income generation.. that should see a decent, but not spectacular spike… but can’t see CGP wanting a JV..

Hi Fort.. Your post earlier highlighting that 33p is now the new 42p equivalence makes the point I’ve raised previously about people needing to review new high point expectations given where we are now, only you phrased it all far better than me, using examples.

The naming a tier one that didn’t sell at a fair price came from Irwin if I’m not mistaken? And it’s a fair point…. But what is a fair price for one person is a poor price for another.. and it’s negatively and gloom, it’s just an acceptance of where we are.. everything is not rose tinted at the moment. I guess we will see at some point in the new year what parties consider fair value.

It’s only fair that alternative viewpoints are expressed when certain posters post ludicrous claims of up to £2 a share…

absurd, misleading ramps are dangerous for any potential investor viewing this board, that is not aware of all the background.. and history.. an alternative dose of reality, not fantasy, can stop the echo chamber effect.

Unfortunately Bozi I think any price range will be lower than many fantasise about.. and Maxit will be happy with a lower exit point than pretty much everyone, having just printed themselves a load of shares at 16p. Any sale in the 30s from there, in short order, would be a nice earner in their eyes.

My worry from here now, is how much interest is there really? Bob can’t induce offers if interest has waned and the Solg story has now gone stale and mouldy…

I keep returning to the question… if there was genuine interest out there, why sell such a large stake at just 16p?… surely a much better price, for such a large position, could have been achieved if our asset was so sought after…. That recent 16p price was both worrying and revealing to me, and will be used as a starting point for any deal.. and all the 300% plus Noront comparisons in the world don’t get us anywhere close to £1 from 15p.

“ The longer it goes on, the more worried we will probably all get”

That is certainly true… I am just hoping with the new guys on the board, it doesn’t slide off towards Easter before a decision is announced. Solg always slides on no news, and we seem to have no other developments running alongside the review to support the price..

Surely the outcome of the review is a foregone conclusion…

how long does it take to get around a table and decide to monetise the asset…

shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks after the merger to publicly announce a data room is open for all interested parties with support from Ecuador gov…

Has any estimate of time been given for the completion of the strategic review?

Not that Solg ever meet it’s milestones..

I hope your right BPHIL… but we have to consider jurisdictional issues and IRR value when considering what a mining company may be willing to pay

Anything over 40p from here is a great result… I think people need to forget referencing previous share price high points, we have a load of extra shares in existence now.. and are sat at 15p….

Anything circa 40p will be a result.. we are where we are now.

Another key question is how much of a premium can Solg achieve for the CGP shares…. And who will take them? Jianxi must be favourite, but after paying 16p recently in a mutually agreed deal, how much more would they realistically be willing to pay? I can’t decide if a new, 4th major entering the fray, would just cloud the water even more, creating more of a stand off between each other… or finally trigger a bid…. and how much of a premium to Jianxi any new major would be willing to pay.. that low recent 16p share print may be used as a reference point.

The market sees we have no business plan beyond hoping Maxit deliver a deal.. no plans beyond hoping to monetise Cascabel.

24% spread on the ask price seems ambitious

That is exactly what I’m saying yes DG1.

There is no law that I am aware of that means any AGM resolution is legally binding.

I do expect them to fudge on the voting outcomes if Mather didn’t quite make it. it would fit in with many complaints over the last few years of our boards questionable corporate governance.

We should find out tomorrow..

Give us your opinion…

I’m fully expecting Solg to engineer a way to keep Mather, even if he got less than 50%.. ‘it is only an advisory vote’ etc etc… ‘it’s not legally binding’ etc etc