By Li Hongmei
Chinese President Xi Jinping heads Friday to Latin America and the Caribbean, as he looks to keep on enhancing ties with emerging economies, which are showing increasing competitiveness in economic dynamism compared with the developed world.
Xi's visit to Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico follows his first foreign trip to Russia and three countries in Africa -- Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of Congo -- shortly after taking office in March.
After Mexico, Xi travels to the United States for his first summit with President Barack Obama on June 7-8 in California.
China has in recent years actively cultivated and strengthened trade and investment ties with the developing world, in a bid to work together to achieve the common development goals based on mutual trust and benefit.
The trip "will be of great significance for deepening China's relations with these three countries and promoting overall cooperation between China, Latin America and the Caribbean", assistant foreign minister Zhang Kunsheng told reporters at a news briefing prior to Xi's departure.
The visit to Mexico, Latin America's second-largest economy after Brazil and a party to the gigantic North American Free Trade Agreement, is the first by a Chinese president since 2005.
It comes after Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto met Xi in China last month when agreements were signed, including a technology exchange between Mexico's state-run oil giant Pemex and the China National Petroleum Corporation.
Mexico is "an important emerging market and one of China's most important Latin American partners for cooperation", Zhang said.
He added that China is Mexico's second-largest trading partner, while Mexico is China's second-largest in Latin America. Two-way trade hit US $36.7 billion in 2012, he said, a 10 percent increase from the year before.
China and Mexico are both members of the Group of 20 leading economies.
Costa Rica is the first country in Central America to establish diplomatic relations with China, which happened in 2007.
The two countries concluded a free trade agreement in 2010 and business has since boomed, with two-way trade up 30.5 percent in 2012 to US $6.2 billion.
"Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in June 2007 our countries have enjoyed fast growth in bilateral relations," Zhang said.
Still, trade between China and Trinidad and Tobago is comparatively small, totaling US $450 million in 2012 according to Chinese government statistics, down from US $627 million the year before.
Xi's visit is the first there by a Chinese president, as well as to the English-speaking Caribbean region, according to Zhang.
The island nation has large reserves of oil and gas and one of the highest levels of GDP per capita in the western hemisphere, the International Monetary Fund released in March.
Meanwhile, Xi will use the stop to meet representatives of several more nations, including Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Suriname and Jamaica, Zhang said.
China has embarked on a diplomatic drive since the new leadership took office in March, with Premier Li Keqiang just wrapping up his maiden visit to India, Pakistan, Switzerland and Germany.
