Mexico ’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRES) has highly valued Vietnam ’s hosting of the first-ever Vietnam-Latin America Trade and Investment Forum on July 5-6.

The SRES’s July 6 press release said the fact that Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung himself opened the forum reflects Vietnam ’s willingness to become an important economic partner of Latin American countries and serve as a bridge between East Asia and Latin America .

The press release highlighted the continuous growth in two-way trade between Vietnam and Latin American countries in recent years.

Vietnam has become Mexico ’s important partner in Asia after their two-way trade increased from 37 million USD to over 1 billion USD over the past decade.

The Mexican news agency Notimex also gave extensive coverage of the Vietnam-Latin America forum, which drew the participation of representatives from 15 Latin American countries.

It said the forum, themed ‘Vietnam-Latin America: Trade and investment partnership for development,’ opened up many opportunities and prospects for cooperation between the two sides, so their traditional relationship can be developed to a comprehensive partnership for peaceful development.-VNA