Chinese Government donates a container scanner to Uruguay's National Ports Administration in 2009

On 23 March 2009, the governments of China and Uruguay exchanged letters, through which the Chinese Government extended a donation of non-instrusive scanner equipment for cargo containers and vehicles (equipo escáner de inspección no instrusiva de contenedores cargas y vehiculos) for which 20 million CNY would be disbursed to the Uruguayan Government. On 20 October 2009, Uruguay's National Ports Administration (Administración Nacional de Puertos) signed a contract with the Chinese company Nuctech Company Limited for the implementation of this project. The scanner was delivered on 23 August 2010. It was estimated that the new equipment would start operating in the first months of 2011. Under the agreement, China offers the services of an official from China, who will supervise for the proper functioning of the equipment for one year. The scanner had a value of 66,087,053 Uruguayan pesos according to the 2011 financial statement from Uruguay's National Ports Administration, or close to 1.5 million USD according to an article from the Presidency of Uruguay. According to the same Uruguayan government source that cites the 1.5 million USD value of the scanner, the agreement signed with China also included funding for the maintenance and training costs of six people for the management of the scanner. Therefore, the original 20 million CNY amount from the agreement has been coded as the transaction amount. The six individuals who received training included three customs officials, one prefecture official, one Faculty of Engineering official, and one Port official. This donation stems from the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement that was signed on 12 May 2008 and approved by Law 18,470 of Uruguay on 17 March 2009. The Central Bank of Uruguay would associate this donation with Aid Account No. 2008/1, which would be managed by China Development Bank and the Central Bank of Uruguay.

Number of official sources

8

Number of total sources

9