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David Cameron launched a one-day charm offensive in Mexico City in a bid to boost British business interests in Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America, pointing out Mexico will be one of the world's five largest economies by 2050. Britain currently supplies less than 1% of Mexico's imports.
The prime minister's trade minister Lord Green also admitted that Britain for many years had got its priorities wrong by focusing excessively on Brazil at the expense of Mexico. Britain and Mexico have signed an agreement to try to double trade by 2015 to £4.2bn.
Cameron was in Mexico City to hold talks with outgoing President Felipé Calderon who had just completed the arduous task of chairing the G20 Summit in Los Cabos, a two-hour flight away on the Pacific coast. The two men made brief statements to the press in the overcast gardens of Los Pinos, the Presidential residence, vowing to strengthen commercial links.
The prime minister had earlier met business leaders, including the world's richest man Carlos Slim (worth $50bn) and introduced a UK business delegation that includes green energy companies and the ceramicist Emma Bridgewater.
Mexico, due to grow by 4% this year, has a surging manufacturing industry and growing middle class. Calderon pointed out the economy was creating 600,000 jobs a year. Britain is the fifth largest foreign investor in Mexico, but nearly four fifths of Mexican trade is with the US.
Cameron said he wanted to step up trade links with countries like Mexico because "the eurozone is currently stagnant and that may continue for a while".
Calderon is expected to be replaced, following elections in a fortnight, by Enrique Pena Nieto the leader of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party. The PRI ran Mexico for 70 years but lost power in 2010.
At a business event, Green pointed out Mexico's ranking in the World Bank's ease of doing business index is higher than Brazil's, and yet Brazil gets more attention in the British public mind than Mexico does.
Green pointed out that Mexico outpaced Brazil in terms of GDP growth last year and is on course to do the same this year.
Referring to the emerging economies dynamism Lord Green said "This isn't just a flash in the pan. This isn't just something that will be true in the next year or two or three. No, this is going to be the trend for the next generation,"
"The centre of the world's gravity is shifting from the west to east (and) from the north to south. Mexico is becoming … a diverse growing economy that is more and more interesting to British business."
