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During the inaugural China-CELAC Forum in 2015, Beijing offered $20 billion in credit to be used to help Chinese enterprises invest in infrastructure projects across the continent.
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China will commit credit lines of just under $10 billion to Latin American countries to support development, but in yuan, its top leader said when addressing a summit of Latin American and Caribbean officials in Beijing on Tuesday.
President Xi Jinping delivered a speech to kick off a ministerial meeting of the China-CELAC Forum, a platform for cooperation between China and Latin American and Caribbean nations.
The credit line, denominated in yuan, appears a push to further internationalise the Chinese currency, as China doubles down on deepening strategic and economic ties with the Latin American region.
"China is doing a lot more yuan-based deals like this, particularly credit swap agreements that make it easier for the borrowing country to transact in RMB rather than USD," said Eric Orlander, co-founder of the China-Global South Project.
China will also implement a visa-free policy for five Latin American and Caribbean countries, Xi said without detailing which countries they were.
The visa-free policy will be expanded to cover more countries in due course.
Trade between China and Latin America exceeded $500 billion for the first time last year, Xi said. That was up from the $450 billion in 2023, and China's trade with Latin America has surged multifold from $12 billion in 2000.
Xi told Latin American and Caribbean officials it was a great pleasure to have "old and new" friends gather, and reinforced that China supports Latin America and the Caribbean nations to expand their influence in the multilateral arena.
The China-CELAC forum has been a vehicle to deepen dialogue between China and the bloc over trade, investment and infrastructure cooperation under China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).