China to invest $10b in Argentine infrastructure

Argentine officials announced that they had secured US$10 billion in railway infrastructure investment from China, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Chinese government signed six bilateral cooperation contracts to invest in 10 separate rail projects over the next two to five years. Among the most prominent is a US$2.5 billion renovation project in Buenos Aires. Funding will come in the form of 19-year loans with an interest rate of Libor plus 600 basis points. The deal is a boon for the Argentine government, which has been penalized with high interest rates in international credit markets after its sovereign default in 2001.