China is a great trade and investment opportunity for Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe said Thursday.

"In the short term, China may seem like a threat to Colombia in trade due to its great competitiveness, particularly in manufacturing and product prices. But in the long term, China is a great opportunity for Colombia," Uribe said.

At a press conference on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on Latin America, Uribe said Colombia sees China as a path to approach Asia. "Colombia-China relations are very important," he said.

The president said bilateral cooperation has enjoyed a rapid development in recent years. In 2008, the two countries signed an agreement on investment at the APEC leaders' meeting in Lima, Peru.

"In these years, the most important in bilateral relations is the possibility of investments in our country. We already have investments coming from China and obviously we want them to grow rapidly," Uribe said.

Commerce Minister Luis Guillermo Plata said Colombia is negotiating with China on how to further enhance bilateral trade and cooperation.

"We must see how boosting trade exchange and cooperation is changing China. At the same time, we should find a more simple and competitive approach to help Colombian products enter the Asian and Chinese markets," Plata said.

According to the General Administration of Customs of China, China-Colombia trade reached 3.37 billion U.S. dollars in 2009.