Chinese attack on Chile’s energy pushes deputies to present project to regulate foreign participation in strategic sectors

Faced with doubts that a Chinese state giant will enter a strategic sector of the country, Deputy Jaime Naranjo (PS) and Miguel Mellado (RN), presented a bill for these situations to be defined by an initiative with the support of Congress with quorum.

The idea aims to establish a formal qualification rule when a foreign State acquires the property of private companies that can be considered essential for the functioning of the population.

The parliamentarians, both from the Economic Commission, sponsor this project due to their concern about the onslaught of the Chinese state-owned State Grid, which will control more than half of the electricity distribution market in the country after agreeing to purchase CGE.

This is how Naranjo reaffirms it: “The investment in the electrical area is worrying because it is strategic and because it will have the information of 4 million customers. This is not an action against the Chinese State but against any State, it is not an anti-investment law, because we are not talking about private ones, but it is very different when another State invests as such. This must be regulated so that tomorrow we do not get any kind of surprise ”.

For his part, Deputy Mellado recalled that on December 15 they invited the government to find out their opinion regarding this mega investment. “We have told the government the importance of conducting geopolitical analysis. We cannot allow investments from other States to enter our territory like Pedro through his house while that the State of Chile cannot do the same, that is not equalizing the field. So any investment must go through the same filter, it seems to us to be fair, “he added.

In substance, the reform adds a numeral (21) to article 19 of the Political Constitution: “A qualified quorum law must authorize the investment of foreign states in corporations or companies, whatever their legal nature, purpose or function, which attend to services of public utility or whose paralysis causes serious damage to the health, the economy of the country, the supply of the population or national security ”.

It should be remembered that a qualified quorum implies the majority of the deputies and senators in office, which is required if the Chilean State wants to become an entrepreneur in a specific activity or aspires to participate in a specific area.

Thus, it is also recalled that in the Chilean legal system there is the denomination of “strategic companies” which are prevented from the right to strike as regulated in the Labor Code, and whose qualification is carried out every two years. In this category are: “corporations or companies that serve public utility services or whose stoppage causes serious damage to health, the country’s economy, the supply of the population or national security.”

In the current list, recalls the parliamentarian, there is the company ENEL, which today is controlled by the Italian State, and Chilquinta, owned by State Grid.

On another level, on December 15 the Economic Commission will receive 4 ministers to hear their opinion on this mega Chinese state investment.