A Chinese delegation began a visit to Honduras on Tuesday, before three weeks have passed since the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two states, the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.

The purpose of the visit is to deepen “the bilateral relationship”, especially in matters of “trade, agri-food products, investments and exports”, explained the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release that it published.

The Chinese delegation met with a ministerial committee consisting of Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reyna, Economic Development Minister Pedro Barquero and Agriculture Minister Laura Suaso.

The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, announced on March 26th the restoration of diplomatic relations with China and thus the interruption of those with Taiwan.

Ten days earlier, Mr Reyna had cited Honduras’ “enormous needs” and Taiwan’s refusal to increase its financial aid to justify the decision to restore relations with Beijing. Taiwan’s government countered that Taipei “will never compete with China in cash diplomacy,” while warning Tegucigalpa “not to fall into China’s debt trap.”

Now only Guatemala and Belize continue to have diplomatic relations with Taiwan in Central America.

Mr. Reyna said that Tegucigalpa and Beijing want to elaborate plans for bilateral cooperation and barrier agreements, with priority on the export of items such as shrimp, crayfish, melons, coffee and sea cucumbers. species of echinoderms highly valued in Chinese traditional medicine.

The National Association of Aquaculture of Honduras, for its part, expresses concern that Taiwan will now refuse to continue buying shrimp from Honduran fish farms, which represent about 150,000 jobs directly and indirectly and until now had about 40% of their production in the island.

Chinese buyers pay about half the price for Honduran shrimp than Taiwanese buyers, producers recently explained.