By Wendy Anders

The China-Latin America 10th Annual Business Summit is set to take place in China’s northern Hebei Province in October, reported the China Xinhua News Network Corporation today.

Chinese officials visiting Costa Rica say the activity is intended to boost economic and trade cooperation between the two countries, and with the Latin American region as a whole.

At a presentation Friday, China’s Ambassador to Costa Rica, Song Yanbin, discussed the importance of business leaders from both Costa Rica and China actively participating in the event.

Costa Rica’s deputy minister of foreign trade, John Fonseca, noted that since the two countries have established diplomatic ties and instated a bilateral free-trade agreement, their trade flows have grown and diversified.

Trade between Costa Rica and China amounted to over US$2 billion last year, said Fonseca.

Hebei, an agricultural region with an emerging industrial base, is China’s sixth-largest regional economy, said the Xinhua news agency.

The region’s Hebei five airports and three ports are equipped to handle a billion tons of goods per year.

Costa Rica’s former ambassador to China and former minister of foreign trade, Marco Vinicio Ruiz, said the summit offers Costa Rican, and other Central American business owners, a significant opportunity to meet and network with their counterparts in China, reported Xinhua.

“It is certainly very important, as Hebei Province is one of the most important areas of trade and development in China. For Costa Rica, it already has a free trade agreement with China and a reciprocal investment promotion agreement. It is a huge opportunity, because it allows us to do businesses with Chinese enterprises in the region,” said Ruiz in an interview with XInhua.