MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay to prioritize Mercosur's ties with China

Paganini also ruled out any problems between Mercosur and China despite Milei's attitude

Uruguay's Foreign Ministry Omar Paganini anticipated that revitalizing dialogue with China will be a main priority once his country takes over the pro-tempore presidency of the South American Common Market (Mercosur) on July 8.

During a press conference in Montevideo on Monday, Paganini insisted that “as always, our main flag is the modernization of Mercosur,” which needs to be a platform for countries such as Uruguay and Paraguay to go out to the world.

“More than a zone that protects us, what we want is a zone that allows us to go out into the world. Trade with the whole world from a common platform. We are going to raise again the need to modernize Mercosur. To open up, to attract, to generate agreements,” he stressed.

“Mercosur has been making progress along these lines: we were able to sign with Singapore and we are making progress with the Emirates. We are going to propose the revitalization of the Mercosur-China dialogue,” he added.

Regarding Argentine President Javier Milei's hostile stance towards China, his country also being a member of Mercosur, Paganini argued that he believed the Libertarian leader to be on the same page about opening up the bloc and integrating into a world “that increasingly requires integration into value and production chains”.

“Uruguay has to open up to the world because that is the way to attract investments. Uruguay is not big enough to be self-sufficient in any way. World production chains today are global and different links in that chain must be brought here,” Paganini also pointed out.