After months of negotiations, China and Ecuador signed a bilateral trade agreement last week. This makes Ecuador the fourth country in the Latin American region to have a trade agreement with China.

Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa announced last week that Argentina agreed to make payments for Chinese imports in Yuan rather than U.S. dollars, in an effort to maintain its reserves of U.S. dollars.

Brazilian President Lula da Silva visited China last week, and the two sides signed a number of agreements related to trade, investment, lending, space exploration, technology and innovation. However, there was no announcement on Brazil joining the BRI, despite the hopes of some on both sides.

A planned trip by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to China was postponed indefinitely due to the president's illness. Nonetheless, it did not stop a series of agreements on bilateral cooperation from being announced in recent weeks. These new agreements cover a number of areas, including

China's central bank announced today that it signed a memorandum of understanding on Chinese yuan (RMB) clearing arrangements with Brazil's central bank. While China has pushed for broader use of its currency for cross-border transactions, progress in making the RMB a leading global currency for cross-border

After ten months of trade negotiations, government officials from China and Ecuador revealed that the bulk of the agreement has been concluded, with only some procedural steps left to be completed. As bilateral trade has grown steadily over the past couple years, the agreement is expected to further bolster trade

After protests put a halt to its mining operations, a Chinese company running a gold mine in Ecuador has brought a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian government under a China-Ecuador bilateral investment treaty.