Mexico City (VNA) – A business cooperation forum was held in thewestern state of Jalisco, the second biggest economic centre of Mexico, onApril 11 and 12 to foster its multifaceted relations with ASEAN countries,particularly in trade, investment, education and tourism.

The event was co-organised by the Association of Southeast AsianNations (ASEAN) Committee in Mexico (ACMC) and the Western Mexican BusinessCouncil for Foreign Trade (COMCE Occidente) with the participation of nearly300 officials and businesspeople in Jalisco.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Mexico Nguyen Hoai Duong, who is also rotatingChairman of the ACMC, highlighted the cooperation potential between ASEAN countriesand Jalisco in particular and Mexico in general in the fields of agriculture,manufacturing industry, information technology, investment, education andtourism.

He said Mexico is a key market of the ASEAN in the Latin American region and agateway to boost cooperative ties with the Pacific Alliance (including Mexico,Chile, Colombia and Peru).

With the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP) of which Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Mexico are members,trade exchanges between Mexico and ASEAN are forecast to further increase, headded.

Mexico is now the third biggest trade partner of Vietnam in Latin America whileVietnam is the eighth most important import-export market of Mexico in Asia,Duong said, noting that two-way trade reached nearly 5 billion USD in 2018, up6.5 times against 2009.

At the forum, Jalisco officials and businesspeople discussed cooperationopportunities between the ASEAN and Mexico and its localities.

They highlighted Mexican products which have huge opportunities for export to theASEAN such as automobiles and spare parts, equipment and machinery, leatherproducts, beef, processed food, fruits and vegetables.

At the business-to-business (B2B) networking forum, dozens of Mexican enterprisesmet with trade representatives from the embassies of Indonesia, Malaysia, thePhilippines, Thailand and Vietnam to study information in the fields of theirinterests.

According to Mexico’s statistics,trade between Mexico and the aforesaid ASEAN countries enjoyed an averageannual growth of 10 percent to hit 25.51 billion USD in the first 11 months of2018.-VNA