China Steps In to Support Venezuela, Ecuador as Oil Prices Tumble

China stepped up its courtship of Latin American countries Thursday, promising to double trade with the region by 2025 and offering fresh loans to support left-wing governments in Venezuela and Ecuador.

However, it’s not clear quite how Xi arrived at his figures. Although trade and investment have rocketed in the last 20 years as China has sucked up natural resources from around the world to fuel its industrialization, growth slowed sharply in the first 11 months of last year, as China refocused its economy on domestic demand.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was reported as saying that he had secured over $20 billion in investment from the state-owned institutions Bank of China and China Development Bank, adding to over $45 billion in the last 10 years. He didn’t give details of the loans’ terms.

Venezuela’s 2-year bonds are currently yielding 62.6%, reflecting widespread expectations that it will default if the price of oil, which accounts for over 90% of Venezuela’s exports, doesn’t recover. It’s not clear whether the new loans will be available for servicing government debts. Ecuador’s 10-year bonds, which were sold at a yield of below 8% last summer, now yield 11.25%, according to Bloomberg.

（ fortune.com Edited by Topco)