On September 16, Prof. Wu Kongming, Vice President of CAAS met with the visiting delegation headed by Mr. Santiago Perez Castellanos, member of Cuban Communist Party Central Committee and Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. The two sides exchanged views on advancing agriculture and rural development through the use of agricultural science and technology.

Prof. Wu Kongming welcomed the Cuba delegation and briefed the progress of China's agricultural development as well as the mandates, mission and development strategies of CAAS. He pointed out that China's agricultural development from narrowly focusing on the supply of food into emphasizing both the quality of agricultural products and sustainable agricultural developments. With the deepening of the global economic integration, China is increasingly concerned about the international competitiveness of its agricultural products. In this new era, CAAS will continue to contribute to the development of agricultural science and technology in order to address various challenges facing the agricultural industry.

Wu spoke highly of the profound friendship and long-term agricultural cooperation between Cuba and China. He calls for initiating and implementing more substantial projects in the agricultural science and technology area under the existing bilateral cooperation framework.

Perez thanked Wu for the warm welcome. He shared the technical and industrial needs of Cuba in terms of water saving agricultural technology and equipment, facilities agriculture, agricultural products storage and processing, drought-resistant crop breeding and pig feed industries, etc. He said that Cuba has ushered into a new stage of economic development with urgent demands to introduce advanced agricultural science and technology. He hopes the collaboration on agricultural technology between China and Cuba will help to accelerate the agricultural and rural development of Cuba.