The relations between China and Latin America, especially in the economic sphere, are helping boost increasingly important South-South cooperation, Cuban state-run daily Granma said Thursday.
In an in-depth article titled "China and Latin America: a nexus for development," the daily said China has become the second largest trade partner and a main source of investment to the region in the past decade.
Bilateral trade has seen an average annual growth of over 30 percent since 2001, reaching 241.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2011.
In an official visit to Chile last June, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao set the goal of increasing two-way trade to 400 billion dollars over the next five years.
Granma cited Osvaldo Rosales, director of International Trade and Integration at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), as saying "the challenge now is for us to unite as Latin America and the Caribbean, jointly defining policies on dialogues and closer ties with China to make the most of this new landscape."
