Chinese President Xi Jinping's just concluded visit to Latin America has raised international confidence in emerging-market economies, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Beijing Friday.

The minister, who accompanied Xi in the nearly two-week-long tour, noted that strategic consensuses were reached along with economic and trade deals worth tens of billions of US dollars.

Noting that Beijing regards enhancing BRICS and China-Latin America cooperation as a key priority in its foreign policy, Wang said the trip was aimed to boost common development and win-win cooperation among developing countries, promote reforms of global economic governance and safeguard the legitimate rights of developing countries.

The strong interest of the international community in Latin America, he said, reflects the collective rise of emerging-market economies and developing countries, with Xi's visit to the region and attendance at the BRICS summit epitomizing China's active participation.

New phase in BRICS cooperation

Speaking at last week's BRICS summit in the Brazilian port city of Fortaleza, Xi called on the member countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- to forge an open, inclusive, cooperative and win-win spirit and establish a closer, more comprehensive and more solid partnership.

With Xi's coordination and promotion efforts, the emerging-market bloc announced plans to set up a development bank and a contingent reserve arrangement, which Wang said showed that BRICS cooperation was moving from ideas to entities.

The multilateral financial institutions, independently set up by the developing economies, mark a major step in building their own financial safety net, Wang said.

The bank and the reserve arrangement, he said, will not only provide strong support for BRICS and other developing countries in economic growth, but also better protect them from international financial risks.

However, he stressed, rather than to cripple the established international system, the BRICS establishments are meant to complement the current global economic and financial mechanism.

In addition, the meeting between BRICS and South American leaders demonstrated the openness and inclusiveness of the BRICS mechanism, said the Chinese foreign minister.

During bilateral meetings with leaders of other BRICS nations, Xi said that China is "true in word and resolute in deed" on China-Russia cooperation; that China and India are "long-lasting strategic and cooperative partners, rather than rivals;" and that China will boost cooperation with South Africa.

The Chinese president also had a phone conversation with his US counterpart, Barack Obama, during which the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to constructing a new type of major-country relations and to strengthening coordination and cooperation on major international and regional affairs.

For his part, Obama said he is looking forward to travelling to China in November for the informal leaders' meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and meeting with Xi.

New stage of bilateral relations

During Xi's visit, China upgraded its bilateral relationships with Argentina and Venezuela to a comprehensive strategic partnership, reached consensus with Brazil to deepen their comprehensive strategic partnership, and expressed determination to be a good friend, comrade and brother of Cuba.

In terms of bilateral cooperation, Xi proposed to link the four countries' resource advantages with China's market potential, and link their development needs with Chinese capital, technology and equipment.

The fruitful visit saw over 150 contracts and framework agreements worth some 70 billion dollars signed between China and those countries, which cover such areas as energy, mining, electricity, agriculture, science and technology, infrastructure construction and financing.

Also, China, Brazil and Peru pledged to join hands to build a railway that will link the Brazilian Atlantic coast with the Peruvian Pacific coast.

It is one of the major projects that are set to contribute "Chinese strength" and "Chinese speed" to the region and encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest overseas, said Wang.

He added that the Chinese president also announced a series of measures in the four countries to further facilitate people-to-people exchanges and promote mutual understanding and friendship.

New chapter in China-Latin America partnership

During his stay in Brazil, Xi met with 11 leaders of Latin American and Caribbean nations and they together decided to build the China-Latin America comprehensive cooperative partnership based on equality, mutual benefit and common development.

Moreover, a forum between China and Latin America was established to steer the overall cooperation between China and the region.

On practical cooperation, Xi put forward a series of new targets, including boosting two-way trade to 500 billion dollars and China's stock of investment in Latin America to 250 billion dollars within 10 years.

Xi also announced the formal launch of a 20-billion-dollar package of special loans for China-Latin America infrastructure cooperation and a 10-billion-dollar package of preferential loans for Latin American countries, and the provision of 6,000 government scholarships for countries in the region within the next five years.

He suggested that 2016 be designated as the "Year of Cultural Exchanges" between China and Latin America.

During his visit, the Chinese president also responded to the July 17 crash of Malaysia Airlines Fight MH17 in eastern Ukraine, calling for a "fair and objective" investigation into the tragedy.

On the Gaza Strip situation, Xi urged the Israelis and Palestinians to cease fire and resume dialogue as soon as possible.

These appeals, together with the concrete efforts of Chinese diplomats, manifested China's role as a peace-loving and responsible major country, Wang said.

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