CAE President Zhou Ji met with Alberto Blanco Silva, Cuban Ambassador to China on September 29, 2011. Zhou, first of all, expressed his warm welcome to Alberto for his visit to the Chinese Academy of Engineering shortly after being appointed. Zhou also said that, people in both countries have long enjoyed lasting friendship. And both countries have been moving forward on the road of socialism, with a lot of accomplishments being achieved. Currently, both countries have entered a new era for development, both needing strengthened efforts in science and education cooperation. In the next stage for development, Zhou said, China should take scientific development as the theme, take the acceleration of the transformation of economic development pattern as the main thread, and rely mainly on the power of science and technology, as well as better innovation capability. At the same time, China should further strengthen cooperative efforts in science and technology with countries all over the world, including Cuba. When speaking of the October 17-24 visit to China by Dr. Castro, Science and Technology Counselor of the State Council of the Republic of Cuba, Zhou expressed sincere expectation and also faith in the success of the coming visiting tour. 

Ambassador Alberto Blanco Silva, first of all, thanked Zhou for his time for this meeting out of very busy schedule. He said Zhou was an old friend to Cuba, who helped to carry out lots of China-Cuba cooperation in the field of education when he was serving as China’s Minister of Education, as a result of which a total of 1736 Chinese students have been pursuing advanced studies in Cuba so far, which has also contributed significantly to human resources in both China and Cuba, as well as personnel training for Latin America. As a matter of fact, year 2011 marks the 51st anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relation between China and Cuba. In June, 2011, China’s Vice President Xi Jinping paid his visit to Cuba, during which time a total of 13 agreements were signed. Ambassador Alberto Blanco Silva also said that Cuba is currently updating its economic development pattern, and hopes to learn from China’s advanced experience and practice featuring integration among production, learning and research (namely, enterprises, universities and research institutes) in the process. Cuba also looks forward to and welcome CAE’s joining the bilateral development cooperation program for the next five years between China and Cuba. Finally, he thanked CAE for all the deliberate preparation and arrangements for Dr. Castro's upcoming visit to China. 

Present also in the meeting were Rigoberto Enoa, Commercial and Economic Counselor of the Cuban Embassy in China, Héctor Conde, First Secretary of the Cuban Ambassador to China, as well as corresponding personnel in the Department of International Cooperation of CAE. (By Zhu Yu, October 2011; translated by Liu Chang)