As part of the agreement, the Chilean miner will procure goods and services from Canadian companies down the road, particularly small-to-medium sized enterprises.

“Such loans have been very productive in the past, especially with Codelco, where they have helped promote Cdn$888 million worth of purchases from more than 150 Canadian companies in the last five years,” a spokesman for EDC told MINING.om.

Jean Cardyn, EDC’s Regional Vice-President in South America said in a statement that the Canadian trade finance agency has identified Chile as a market that holds tremendous promise and potential for growth.

Late last month President Michelle Bachelet enacted a special law to spur the company’s output, which grants Codelco an extra injection of S$4 billion between 2014 and 2018.

The Santiago-based company, struggling with aging mines and depressed copper prices, is also planning to sell about $8 billion of bonds over the next five years to help finance a nearly $30bn investment program and so maintain its status as the world’s biggest copper producer.

It is estimated that Codelco holds about 9% of the world’s known proven and probable reserves and roughly 11% of the global annual copper output with 1.8 million metric tons of production.

Image courtesy of Codelco.