[Excerpt translation provided by Business and Human Rights Resource Centre]

"The company that wants to build Portezuelo has a troubling history" - July 8, 2020

...Sinohydro, the Chinese company that presented itself in Mendoza to lead the construction project of Portezuelo del Viento, recently constructed the mega-dam in Ecuador that had more than 8,000 fissures were detected, less than two years after its completion, and currently maintains a dispute with the government of that country for a very high increase in costs which were demanded to do the work that was started in 2016... This was reported by the digital newspaper Mendoza On Line, the Chinese company that together with the Mendoza-based IMPSA (Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona SA), Ceosa and Obras Andinas formed a Temporary Union of Companies (UTE) which submitted the only bid to build "the work of the century" in Malargüe, is going through a "long series of criminal proceedings" in that country, including one involving a corruption scandal due to the payment of bribes to the current president, Lenín Moreno...The newspaper published yesterday an extensive article on the subject after interviewing Ecuadorian journalist Fernando Villavicencio, who investigated the landing of Chinese investments in that part of Latin America during the government of former president Rafael Correa...