Ministry: Cuban PM's visit to help deepen ties

Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz will start an eight-day visit to China on Thursday, his first to the country since he took office in December 2019.

Chinese leaders will meet and hold talks with Marrero to have in-depth exchanges on China-Cuba ties as well as on international and regional issues of shared concern, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular news conference on Wednesday.

Wang said the nation welcomes the Cuban leader to visit China and attend the sixth China International Import Expo, which is scheduled to start in Shanghai on Sunday and runs through Nov 10.

Marrero's visit adds to a series of important high-level exchanges between China and Cuba over the past year. It is significant in terms of implementing the important common understanding reached by the two heads of state and further deepening bilateral ties, the spokesman said.

In November last year, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, who is also first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, made a state visit to China.

In September, Li Xi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and special representative of President Xi Jinping, attended the G77 China Summit in Havana, the capital of Cuba.

"China and Cuba are good friends on a shared journey and comrades with a shared vision," the spokesman said.

China is ready to work with Cuba to take Marrero's visit as an opportunity to deepen the special friendly relationship between the two countries and jointly build a China-Cuba community with a shared future, he added.