FOCUS Information Agency - Ecuador has reached out to China to ease its liquidity crisis, signing a deal to supply the energy-hungry nation with 69m barrels of oil over the next two years in return for a USD 1 billion advance payment, The Financial Times reported.China is also offering a USD 1 billion loan, according to comments by Fander Falconi, (photo) foreign minister, reported in Ecuadorean Hoy, a local newspaper.
China has sought to secure long-term access to oil from Ecuador at a time when the Andean nation is running perilously low on liquidity following the commodities crash and its controversial default on USD 3.2 billion in foreign debt that it argued was “illegitimate”.
The leftist administration says it has paid USD 900 million to repurchase about 91% of the Global 2012 and 2030 bond issues, a deal that weakened its already strained relations with foreign investors and multilaterals.
