Montevideo, Oct 25 — Uruguay is a “stable and legally safe” country that constitutes a gateway to Mercosur for Chinese investments, an official who was on this month’s Uruguayan government mission to the Asian country said on Tuesday.

Antonio Carambula, executive director of the institute of investment and exports Uruguay XXI, told Radio Uruguay that his country “is an open door” for China to the region.

“We have a law to promote investment that creates favorable conditions, so that the sector, Chinese private enterprises or, possibly, the state can invest. And that issue has been raised, it is on the table,” he said.

Carambula stressed that, through Uruguay, the Asian country can access Mercosur, since the agreements reached during the official Uruguayan mission to China and the possible signing of Free Trade Agreement in 2018 may result in increased investment of Chinese capital in the country and other South American nations.

Mercosur, the Spanish acronym for the “Southern Common Market,” is a sub-regional bloc created in 1991 to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people, and currency.

Mercorsur’s full members are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. Its associate countries are Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname. Observer countries are New Zealand and Mexico.

Eighty-five percent of Uruguay’s exports to China are meat, soy and cellulose products, according to Carambula.

“What we are doing by improving access to our markets is to defend the work of Uruguayans,” he said. EFE