On March 19, 2009, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at invitation attended a working dinner given by the diplomatic corps of Latin American and Caribbean countries in China. 17 diplomatic envoys to China from Latin American and Caribbean countries attended the dinner.

The diplomatic envoys warmly congratulated China on the success of the NPC and CPPCC sessions and the 60 anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. They highly praised the recent successful visits by President Hu Jintao, Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Hui Liangyu to Latin America and the Caribbean, agreeing that China has played a major leading role in coping with the global financial crisis. They believed that China will well safeguard common interest of developing countries in reforming the international financial system and other areas. The Latin American countries are ready to further enhance cooperation with China and upgrade the level of bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

Yang made positive comments on the development of China-Latin America relations and appreciated the diplomatic envoys for their positive contributions to pushing forward the development of bilateral ties. Yang pointed out that China and Latin America should strengthen coordination and cooperation, jointly tackle the international financial crisis, oppose trade protectionism and push the international economic and financial order towards a more just and reasonable direction, in a bid to safeguard common interests of both sides and other developing nations. China attaches importance to developing ties with Latin America from a strategic height and is ready to continue maintaining high-level exchanges of visits, deepening mutual trust and pushing for all-round development of China-Latin America friendly cooperative relations of mutual trust.