The US International Development Finance Corporation has struck a deal to help Ecuador repay billions of dollars in loans to China in exchange for excluding Chinese companies from its telecom networks.

Adam Boehler, the chief executive of the US development bank, signed the deal in an event with Ecuadorean president Lenín Moreno on Thursday, calling it a “novel model” to eject China from the Latin American nation.

“It is a novel approach that very strongly combines both missions of the DFC,” Mr Boehler said. “The first is that we are going to impact development in Ecuador in a very positive way. And the second reason that DFC was created was so that no single authoritarian country had undue influence over another country and we are addressing that factor with this agreement.”