Praising the continued growth maintained by China’s economy, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto pledged that his country is ready to share China’s successful experience within the G20 mechanism and together contribute to the improvement of global governance.

“As today’s world is now undergoing a paradigm shift, innovation plays a key role in boosting economic growth and prosperity,” Nieto added in a written interview with the People’s Daily ahead of his attendance at the G20 Hangzhou Summit.

Mexico hosted the G20 Los Cabos Summit in 2012, during which the Los Cabos Action Plan was adopted. Nieto pointed out that as a co-chair of the G20 Investment and Infrastructure Working Group, Mexico has been committed to addressing the challenges facing the 21st century together with the rest of the world.

China and Mexico agreed to upgrade their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership in June, 2013. The president said that the increasingly deepening bilateral exchanges and cooperation also show the huge economic potential of the two countries.

Nieto said that more Mexican products like pork, strawberries and tequila are now exported to Chinese market, while the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China’s largest bank by total assets and by market capitalization, also opened its first branch in Mexico.

Mexico hoped to boost bilateral trade and investment with China and achieve more balanced trade, he added.

“We have fully realized China’s status as a major global economy and made Mexico-China cooperation a priority,” the president said.

Praising China’s sustained growth amid the complicated global economy, Nieto said that Mexico should learn from China’s successful experience. Mexico is interested in China’s economic vitality, scale as well as potential, and will identify and utilize the economic complementarily between the two countries, he added.

Mexico launched energy reforms to open its electric and petrochemical industries wider to the private sectors in both domestic and global markets, and such reforms can bring opportunities to Chinese investment, the president told the People’s Daily.

Citing the exhibitions of painter Diego Rivera and Mayan artifacts held in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, as well as cultural galas and Chinese opera performances in Mexico, Nieto said that such collaboration can help consolidate mutual understanding and friendship between the two nations.

He stressed that Mexico recently established the first Chinese cultural center in the Latin American region, while China also has a Mexican Studies Center.

“These are all witnesses to the great friendship, close ties, mutual understanding and trust between the two countries,” he concluded.