Chinese President Xi Jinping has signed a series of oil and mineral deals with Venezuela.
中国国家主席习近平与委内瑞拉政府签署一系列的石油、矿产协议。
They include a $4bn credit line in return for Venezuelan crude and other products
.
The agreements
came on the latest stop of a four-country visit to Latin America.
Mr Xi has already signed key deals in Argentina and Brazil. He has now departed from Venezuela and will visit Cuba next.
In Argentina the Chinese leader agreed to an $11bn currency swap
providing much needed money for the government of President
Cristina
Fernandez de Kirchner.
Argentina has been locked out of the international capital markets since a default in 2001.
Mr Xi also helped launch a new development
bank alongside the other
emerging powers of the Brics group - Brazil, Russia, India and South
Africa - at a summit in Brazil.
The new bank is intended to create an alternative to the Western-dominated World Bank.
Chinese trade with Latin America has grown rapidly. It is now the
second-largest trading partner in Argentina
and Cuba, and has been
Brazil's largest since 2009.
China is the second-largest market for Venezuelan
oil after the United States.
Analysts say the underlying purpose of the visit has been to secure
more natural resources from Latin American countries to fuel China's
long term economic expansion.
The Chinese president is now on his way to Cuba where he will meet President Raul Castro.
The Communist-led island and China are long-term close political
allies and China has given Cuba generous trade credits in the past.