BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The value of China's trade with Latin America was 63.97 billion U.S. dollars in the first nine months of this year, up 43.5 percent year-on-year, said Fu Ziying, assistant minister of the Ministry of Commerce of China (MOFCOM).

Fu spoke at the opening ceremony of the Commodities Exhibition of Latin American and Central Eastern European Countries held here Thursday, which is scheduled to run through Saturday.

Trade between China and the eastern and central Europe was 19.47 billion U.S. dollars from January to September, up 21 percent from a year earlier, Fu added.

The exhibition, hosted by MOFCOM, attracted more than 150 enterprises from 16 countries, including Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Macedonia.

"China provided more than 180 free show booths for foreign exhibiters, which demonstrates its efforts to promote trade and economic cooperation with Latin America and central and east European countries," said Feng Hongzhang, head of the Trade Development Bureau under MOFCOM.

China hoped such exhibitions could help enterprises from these regions further explore the huge Chinese market, Feng said.

Chinese statistics show that in 2006, China's trade with Latin America was 70.22 billion U.S. dollars, while that with central and east European countries was 22.66 billion U.S. dollars.