China, Colombia sign Belt and Road co-op pact

China and Colombia have signed a joint cooperation plan on the Belt and Road Initiative, state media said yesterday after their leaders met in Beijing.

Burgeoning commerce in recent years has helped grow Beijing's influence in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region of strategic significance for the United States.

Colombia's Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia said yesterday that the decision to join China's flagship overseas development project was the South American country's "boldest step in decades."

"The signing of this cooperation plan opens up a horizon of endless opportunities in trade, investment, and tourism. There is no turning back: Colombia is resolutely opening up to the world," Sarabia wrote on X.

China is Colombia's second largest trading partner after the United States, which it recently displaced as Colombia's largest source of imports.

China is ready to import more high-quality products from Colombia, back its firms in investing and doing business there and join in infrastructure construction, President Xi Jinping told counterpart Gustavo Petro, the Xinhua news agency said.