Singapore's trade with Latin America has more than doubled since 2005, with registered trade volume of 30.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, the city-state's Second Minister for Foreign Affairs, Grace Fu, released in Parliament on Friday.

Singapore's political engagement with the region has also been stepped up, Fu added.

When asked about the country's Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU), Fu said: "These FTA networks are not just important economically but also strategically. They provide strong institutional links to strong global and regional powers. Members will know how vital international trade is to Singapore. As our FTAs are all WTO-plus, in other words it's better than WTO terms, collectively they help to provide an added impetus to global trade liberalization talks."

The FTA talks between the city-state and the EU concluded in last December, after nearly three years of negotiations ever since March in 2010.

According to the deal, the EU will eliminate tariffs on all imports from Singapore over a period of five years. Endi

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