Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) attends a welcoming ceremony held by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (R) in Bogota, capital of Colombia, May 21, 2015. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

 
China and Colombia on Thursday vowed to seek cooperation in a host of areas including production capacity, equipment manufacturing and infrastructure construction to boost economic ties.

The move came as visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos at the presidential palace in Bogota.

It is the first time in three decades that a Chinese premier has visited Colombia.

The two leaders signed a series of bilateral cooperation deals in areas including trade, production capacity, infrastructure construction, culture, education, science and technology, agriculture and finance.

The two governments issued a joint declaration after the talks.

Describing his talks with Santos as "frank and fruitful," Li said the two countrie are ready to set up plants in Colombia to produce iron and steel, construction materials and engineering equipment according to the needs of the Colombian side.

This bilateral cooperation is expected to lower the cost of production and provide jobs for local communities, Li added.

The two countries also reached a consensus to launch a feasibility study on the China-Colombia bilateral free trade agreement and discuss the pact to avoid double taxation.

Santos said that he believes Li's current visit will become a landmark in the development of Sino-Colombian relations, Xinhua reported.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Li arrived in Bogota after his trip to Brazil, the first leg of a four-nation Latin America tour which will also take him to Peru and Chile.

His visit comes about four months after the first ministerial meeting of the Forum of China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Beijing, where China and Latin American countries agreed to increase their trade to $500 billion by 2025. China also pledged to bring its accumulative investment in the region to $250 billion by then.

Columbia is an engine of growth in Latin America. Despite being influenced by the global economic recession and European debt crisis, Columbia kept its annual GDP growth rate at 5 percent from 2010 to 2014.

Santos's policy of making mineral, construction, infrastructure, manufacturing and agriculture as the main growth engines have greatly driven the economic development of Columbia and his policy matches the cooperation map proposed by the Chinese government, Yang Zhimin, a research fellow with the Institute of Latin American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , told the Global Times.

China is now the second largest trade partner of Columbia and the bilateral trade volume hit $15.6 billion in 2014, a year-on-year increase of 49.8 percent. Columbia is the fifth largest trade partner of China in Latin America.

Li said that with two strongly complementary economies, China and Colombia have broad prospects of cooperation.

He added that the Chinese government will focus on developing the cooperation in production capacity and equipment manufacturing with Columbia and encourage enterprises to participate in the infrastructure construction in the South American country.

Yang said that China used to import mostly minerals from the country but now it will expand investment in building infrastructure like railways, subways and ports as the two countries' ties deepen.

He noted that due to political and social stability as well as the geographic location, more Chinese businessmen will invest in Colombia.

Li said that China is willing to enhance political mutual trust and practical cooperation, expand people-to-people exchanges.

Wang Xiaoyuan, Chinese Ambassador to Columbia, said that the two governments have built mutual trust and shared common or similar stances in many political and international affairs and China has been supporting the progress of peace in Columbia.

Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, best known for One Hundred Years of Solitude, greatly influenced Chinese writers in the late 1980s. Chinese writers and readers mourned for the writer when he passed away in April 2014.

Mo Yan, the first Chinese national to win a Nobel Prize for literature and also one of seven Chinese writers in the delegation of Li's Latin-American tour, has said earlier that he was deeply influenced by Marquez.

"China attaches great importance to cultural exchanges and mutual understanding with Colombia," Li said in the meeting.

Xinhua contributed to this story