Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said on Monday that China's finance community is ready to expand cooperation with Latin America following China's joining of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in January.

Zhou, governor of the People's Bank of China, made the remarks at the annual governors assembly of the IDB held in Medellin, Colombia.

The governor highly praised the IDB's efforts to reduce poverty and promote economic and social development of Latin America and the Caribbean in the past 50 years.

China is ready to join hands with other IDB members in the face of the ongoing financial crisis to promote sustainable economic and social development in the region, Zhou said.

Negotiations between some Chinese financial institutions and the IDB have entered a substantial phase, he noted.

On the sidelines of the assembly, China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China have signed a memorandum of understanding about cooperation in common financing.

Meanwhile, Bank of China has carried out cooperation with the IDB in facilitating trade and financing between the two sides.

With the rapid growth of trade between China and Latin America, financial cooperation has gained fresh momentum in recent years.

On Sunday, the People's Bank of China signed with the Central Bank of Argentina a currency swap framework deal totaling about 70billion yuan (some 10.2 billion U.S. dollars), marking the biggest financial deal in both the Chinese and Latin American history.

The IDB has become "the most important platform" for China's collaboration with this region since China joined the organization as its 48th member country in January 2009, Zhou noted.

China's direct investment in Latin America totaled 24 billion U.S. dollars in 2008 while its trade with the region reached a record of more than 140 billion dollars, an increase of 40 percent from 101 billion in 2007, according to Zhou.

Central bank governors and business leaders discussed international economic crisis and its impact on Latin America and the Caribbean during the IDB annual meeting, which closed on Sunday.

The IDB group, founded in 1959 and headquartered in Washington D.C., is the oldest and largest regional inter-governmental development financial institution designed to promote economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

(Xinhua News Agency March 31, 2009)