Ecuador, home to South America's third-largest oil reserves, will finance its 2013 budget deficit with a $2 billion loan from China, Finance Minister Patricio Rivera said on Thursday.
The government will use the loan to help fund a spending gap set to increase to about $6 billion next year, Rivera said in a joint news conference with President Rafael Correa in Quito.
That is 7.75 percent of the GDP forecast for 2013, up from this year's forecast budget deficit of 5.7 percent, according to Finance Ministry and Central Bank data.
China Daily-Agencies