Mexico, Spain agree to strengthen economic cooperation

　　MEXICO CITY, (Xinhua) -- The governments of Mexico and Spain agreed Thursday to strengthen bilateral relations to help increase the flow of trade and investment and strengthen cooperation on economic issues such as customs and tourism.

　　At the conclusion of a Mexico-Spain economic and financial meeting, Mexican Finance Minister Bruno Ferrari evaluated with his Spanish counterpart Luis de Guindos the bilateral financial cooperation in recent years.

　　Spain is the second largest trading partner of Mexico. In 2011, the trade between the two countries exceeded 8.7 billion U.S. dollars, representing 15.3 percent of Mexico's trade with the European Union.

　　The two ministers agreed to deepen cooperation between agencies promoting trade and investment, for which ProMexico, the ICEX (Spanish Foreign Trade Institute) and Investy in Spain will continue to work for the internationalization of companies and reciprocal investment.

　　Over the past 10 years, Spanish companies have invested more than 41 billion dollars, or 41 percent of the 27-member EU's investment in that period, in Mexico. Meanwhile, the Mexican investment in Spain reached around 17 billion dollars in the period.