The Chinese state-owned company China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC) will build a photovoltaic solar power plant with a capacity of 67.3 megawatts in Nicaragua, the government of the Central American country announced on Monday. The solar energy project will be implemented with an 80 million dollar Chinese credit, said Vice President Rosario Murillo to official media.
Officials from the Nicaraguan Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit participated in the signing of the agreement in China, said Murillo, wife of President Daniel Ortega. The design, supply, and construction of the photovoltaic generation plant will be developed in “El Hato”, in Ciudad Darío, in the northern department of Matagalpa, she added.
The presidential advisor for the Promotion of Investments, Trade, and International Cooperation, Laureano Ortega Murillo, who joined the contract signing virtually, said that the CCCC company will also build another solar power plant, and together they will generate more than 130 megawatts.
“These are historic, extraordinary moments for the country, within the framework of the development of the brotherhood relationship between Nicaragua and China,” said Ortega Murillo, son of the president and vice president.
The Chinese company will build another plant with a capacity of 63 megawatts and with an investment of 82 million dollars, in San Isidro, in the department of Matagalpa, according to a contract signed in 2023, he told official media.
For his part, the president of CCCC, Wang Tongzhou, indicated that they will increase their investments in the Central American country to “maximize our competitiveness in infrastructure and make more contributions to the friendship between China and Nicaragua.”
Last December, China and Nicaragua agreed to elevate their relations to the level of “strategic partnership”, after a telephone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ortega. Nicaragua and China launched a Free Trade Agreement in January.
In 2021, Managua established relations with China after breaking with Taiwan, considered by Beijing as its own territory whose control it must retake, even by force if necessary.
Since then, the world’s second-largest economy has supported the Nicaraguan government, which faces sanctions and condemnation from the United States and European countries following the 2018 protests against Ortega, which left more than 300 dead according to the UN.
The two governments agreed that, as part of their strategic partnership, they will strengthen “exchanges and cooperation” also in security and technology.
The Chinese government and companies will also participate in the construction of popular housing, road, airport, railway, and energy infrastructure projects.
