SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) -China and El Salvador will begin free trade talks, the Chinese ambassador to the country and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said during an event in El Salvador on Wednesday.
Both countries said a treaty would be finalized “as soon as possible.”
The announcement came as El Salvador was receiving a donation of fertilizer and wheat flour from the Asian nation, which El Salvador said would “mitigate the impact of the worldwide economic crisis.”
Bukele said the trade agreement with China was “very important” for El Salvador due to China’s economic strength. “For a long time, El Salvador had been isolated from that potential,” he said.
The move is part of the countries’ growing closeness, with China having also offered to buy El Salvador’s distressed external bond debt, a Salvadoran official was reported as saying earlier this week.
On Monday, a Salvadoran court upheld a suspension of El Salvador’s free trade agreement with Taiwan, which China’s ambassador to El Salvador Ou Jianhong celebrated.
“We express our gratitude and appreciation for this ruling on the basis of the One China Principle,” she said at the time.
The One China Principle is the position held by China that both China and Taiwan are part of “one China.”
The Central American nation ended diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 2018, a year before Bukele took office.
(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by Isabel Woodford, Lincoln Feast and Chris Reese)