SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile’s president says Spanish investments will be respected in the South American country.
President Sebastian Pinera spoke Tuesday in Santiago alongside Spain’s King Juan Carlos, who is in Chile leading a trade delegation on his first major trip since he fell and broke a hip on an elephant-hunting trip in April.
Pinera’s reassurance to Spanish investors comes less than two months after the government in neighboring Argentina expropriated YPF, that country’s largest energy company, from Spain’s Repsol .
The king’s trip to Latin America is seen as an attempt to recover some of the respect he lost after his elephant hunting mishap caused outrage in a country suffering from a deep economic crisis and crushing unemployment.
The 74-year-old monarch says Spain is starting to recover from the economic crisis.
