China's Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) will set up its representative office in Costa Rica by the end of 2007, the vice president of the council said on Tuesday.

The office, the first of its kind in Central America, will play an important part in promoting trade relations between China and Costa Rica, as well as in communications between entrepreneurs of the two countries, vice president of CCPIT Wang Jinzhen told a press conference.

Wang is in Costa Rica as part of the first Chinese commercial delegation to visit after the two countries established diplomatic ties on June 1, 2007.

A four-day exhibition of Chinese goods will also be unveiled in San Jose on Wednesday and Chinese trade officials and experts will meet their Costa Rican counterparts on a trade forum the same day.

According to statistics from China's General Administration of Customs, trade volume between China and Costa Rica reached US$2.1 billion in 2006, 87 percent higher than that of 2005, while the trade volume between the two sides witnessed a 65-percent rise in the first half of this year.