MOSCOW, August 13. /ITAR-TASS/. Mexico is ready to enter the Russian market if the opportunity arises, ambassador to Russia Ruben Beltran said on Wednesday.

“Mexico's economic potential is in exports. Mexico is one of the world’s largest exporters of pork and beef,” Beltran said, adding that the country also had a world lead in tomato and avocado exports.

“We should not forget that manufactured goods form the basis of Mexican exports,” the ambassador said. “Mexico is no longer a country where most exports are oil and farm produce. Today, manufactured goods account for 80% of exports.”

“Foreign trade is essential to our economy, and we expect its growth in the near future,” he said, adding that a third of all products exported from Latin America were Mexican.

In response to Western sanctions, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on August 6 to ban for 12 months imports of agricultural, raw materials and food products from countries that imposed sanctions against Russia. Putin’s decree instructed his government to devise an action plan and draft a list of products that would be subject to the ban.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced on August 7 that the Russian government had imposed a one-year ban on imports of all meat, fish, dairy, fruit and vegetables from the United States, the 28 European Union countries, Canada, Australia and non-EU member Norway.