Nicaragua and China signed a new cooperation agreement

Government of Nicaragua reported this Saturday that it signed a contract with the People’s Republic of China for the production of thermal energy and another contract for the construction of social housing.

The signature was signed a day earlier by Laureano Ortega Murillo, the son of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo, and Luo Zhaochi, the leader China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA).

The first agreement is the signing of notes for a 150-megawatt thermal power plant renovation project in Nicaragua, which will be supported by China.

The second is the preparation of a feasibility study of the second phase of the so-called housing program “New victories”according to official information.

Ortega’s son, who is a presidential adviser to Investment, trade and international cooperationannounced through the official media that the first phase of the housing program, which consists of the construction of 920 houses, will be inaugurated tomorrow, and the head of CIDCA will also attend it.

“Nuevas Victorias is a program that includes the construction of 12,034 homes in 84 (out of 153) municipalities, in 15 departments and two autonomous regions” of Nicaragua, indicated, for his part, the Nicaraguan Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Óscar Mojica.

This housing care program will be developed over three years, in three phases, he pointed out.

Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Iván Acosta, assured that apart from the housing program, China “opening up wide possibilities of financing, cooperation, under different financing modalities at zero rate, non-reimbursed financing and other highly concessional financing”about which he did not give details.

“In other words, (it’s) building a path to conversion People’s Republic of China in the largest bilateral cooperation” of Nicaragua, he pointed out.

Regarding the thermal energy agreement, the executive president in Nicaraguan Electric Company (ENEL)Ernesto Martínez, said that China will help “increase the installed capacity of the State of Nicaragua, through ENEL, with 150 megawatts of thermal power plants that will be installed in a place that we have yet to define in the coming days and whose feasibility will be finalized. 30 of this month .”

This was announced by CIDCA head Luo Zhaohui China and Nicaragua they also “discussed other projects in the field of education, agriculture and infrastructure”.

“I am coming (for the first time to Nicaragua) for two reasons: one, to bring my greetings and gratitude to my friends, brothers. Second, I bring you my obligations and hopes for our future”explained Zhaohui, who assured that the Asian giant “is very satisfied with the successes achieved” by the Central American country “in terms of economy, but also in terms of society.”

“We are very aware and confident that we will work together”said Zhaohui, who assured that they are paying “a lot of attention to the relationship between China and Nicaragua.”

“We are sure that in the future we will work together to raise the level of relations between the two countries to a higher level”he added.

Nicaragua re-established relations with China in December 2021, immediately after severing relations with China. Taiwanone of its best economic partners and main subcontractors at the time of its collapse.

Nicaragua and China signed in July 2022.Early Harvest Agreement”, which is considered a step before the establishment of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries.