Iran-Cuba Commission Agrees to Expand Ties in Various Sectors

The 17th Session of Cuba-Iran Intergovernmental Commission, whose main goal was to expand collaboration in various economic and health sectors, concluded in Havana on Wednesday, Prensa Latina, the official state news agency of Cuba, reported.
During the meeting, new agreements were signed to foster bilateral exchange, Cuban Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment reported.
According to Latin American television network Telesur, Iran's Deputy Health Minister Mohsen Asadi Lari and Cuba's Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment Rodrigo Malmierca signed memoranda of understanding.
During the meeting, officials and businesspeople from both countries discussed financial and investment relations.
At the end of the negotiations, Malmierca affirmed that Cuba was also interested in increasing bilateral trade with Tehran in medical and biopharmaceutical sectors.
An MoU was also signed between Cuba's Finlay Institute of Vaccines and Iran's Pasteur Institute, as well as another between the Cuban Center for the Promotion of Foreign Trade and Investment and the Iranian Trade Promotion Organization.
A collaboration between the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation of Cuba and the Iranian counterpart, a prioritized bilateral scientific exchange for plant health and protection and medicinal registration between the Center for State Control of the Quality of Drugs in Cuba and Iran's Food and Drug were also tabled.
"Our countries' leaders are determined to have effective economic and technological collaboration, which will be beneficial to the peoples of the two nations and materialize in the near future," the Iranian deputy minister said.
Cuba and Iran jointly work in several fields of cooperation, including health, investments, energy, agriculture and sports that, during the previous Intergovernmental Commission held in 2017, were ratified in 12 agreements.
These included a visa extension agreement, agricultural cooperation and a memorandum of understanding between Cubahidraulica and its Iranian counterpart.
Besides, an Action Plan was signed to implement the memorandum of understanding on health and a Letter of Intent between Cuba's State Control of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices Center and the regulatory authority of Iranian Health Ministry.
Cuban-Iranian good relations were recently ratified with a held 
In a September 2018 meeting held at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed to evaluate proposals for undertaking joint projects in the health sector.
Cuba and Iran first established diplomatic relations in 1979 and have maintained strong bilateral cooperation.