SANTIAGO - China actively participates in global governance as a member of the UN Security Council and has always played a role of balance in maintaining world stability, peace and security, a UN official in Latin America said Wednesday.

"One of China's roles is to be a counterweight to the predominant Western vision about the world's problems in the United Nations," said  Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Latin America and the Caribbean region expects China to take on a key leadership and proactive role in global governance, Barcena told Xinhua in an interview.

China can help a lot in shaping global governance, particularly in forging understanding and cooperation between regional and global structures, and in achieving a well-balanced monetary system, Barcena said.

The idea of this new international monetary system boosted by the United Nations is that it will not depend only upon the U.S. dollar, but on a set of currencies, she said. "The Chinese yuan should play a basic role."

Barcena also said that there are many lessons to share between China and Latin America and that China faces the same challenge of development imbalance which Latin America has experienced.

Latin American trade with China exceeded $100 billion in 2007, and reached 183 billion dollars in 2010.

"Latin America is a very important partner for China and vice versa," she said, adding it is important to look for complementary bilateral cooperation.

Latin America and China have to find a way to be more complementary as both are large markets, said Barcena.

Latin American countries should seek cooperation with China in the field of innovation, she said. China invests almost 1.5 percent of its gross domestic product in technological innovation and its goal is to reach 2.5 percent in 2020, while Latin America invests less than 1 percent, she noted.

Barcena said it is necessary to increase scientific and technological exchanges between China and Latin America.

"We have great resources to make research in the fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology and I believe we should also seek to build joint enterprises that go beyond trade," she said.

The region could attract more Chinese investment, which is not growing as fast as trade, she said.

Barcena also urged region-to-region cooperation between Latin America and Chinese provinces. "We have to build a more realistic relationship in order to achieve inter-regional results with a long-term vision," she said.