The Minister Counsellor at China's embassy in Mexico recommended here Tuesday the region bolster its trade and financial ties with the Asian giant as a way to mitigate the impact of falling raw material prices and weak growth.
China continues to be the engine of global growth and invested more than 110 billion U.S. dollars abroad in 2015, Lin Ji said.
Lin's words came after he presented to Mexican legislators a report on LatAm-China trade ties published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Titled "Latin America's Economic Outlook for 2016, Towards A New Partnership With China," the report said China's economy not only "remains stable," but also shows "a tendency to improve."
"Last year, under circumstances of a global decline, China grew 6.9 percent," noted Lin, while outbound tourism from China alone generated over 170 billion dollars in spending.
Over the past decade, trade between China and Latin America has grown to 260 billion dollars, and the future looks bright, he added, with cooperation expanding from mining and energy to transport, telecommunications and renewable energy.
"China wants to strengthen cooperation in production capacity as well as financial cooperation to further promote economic trade ties," said Lin.
The diplomat debunked the belief that China has sparked lower growth in Latin America by cutting back on its demand for raw materials, saying his country increased its imports of iron by 2.2 percent, oil 8.8 percent and soy 44 percent in 2015, compared to the year before.
"That means China continues to be a significant source of demand," Lin said.
Also on hand for the presentation was the OECD's regional head of development Angel Melguizo, who said, "one of the main challenges for Latin America is to find new ways to grow productivity," and move away from its reliance on natural resources.
"China can be part of this new economic growth model," he said, recommending regional countries make the most of China's new needs by diversifying their basket of exports.
