MEXICO CITY - Mexico is seeking to double its food exports to China next year, the government announced Monday.

The Latin American country is expected to export $290 million worth of food products to China in 2016, an increase of around $150 million compared with that of this year, according to the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fishing and Food (Sagarpa).

The increase will generate more than 5,000 jobs in the primary sector, Jose Calzada Rovirosa, head of Sagarpa, said in a press release.

Rovirosa, who arrived in China on Saturday for a working visit, aiming to review progress in sanitary protocols for the exportation, in the short and medium term, of powder milk and baby formulas, tobacco and white corn, and to open the market to bananas, La Jornada daily reported Sunday.