On the afternoon of November 6, Mr. Néstor Enrique Torres Olivera, Consul General ofthe Republic of Cuba in Shanghai, visited our school for the first time. PresidentCheng Yudung, Zhong Junsheng, Director of Office of International Affairs,QuLuquan, President of College of InternationalCultural Exchange， had talks with guests.
Cheng Yudong briefly introduced thedevelopment, discipline distribution and recent development of Shanghai OceanUniversity, recalled the friendly exchanges between our university and Cuba inthe 1960s and 1990s and looked forward to enhancing friendly relations withCuba and launching more diversified cooperation. The Consul General thanked ouruniversity for the warm reception and expressed his gratitude to China andShanghai Ocean University for the friendship with Cuba and looked forward tofurther promoting the exchange of young people between Chinese and Cubanuniversities. In particular, he hoped to effectively promote Cuban economicdevelopment through international cooperation.
The Consul General had cordial discussionswith four Cuban students studying at our university, getting to know thecurrent conditions of Cuban students at our university. Cuban studentsexpressed their love for Shanghai Ocean University, its teachers and students,cherished their opportunity to study at the university and would study hard toset an example for the exchanges and cooperation between the two countries andpromote the further development of the friendship between the two countries.
The exchange between our university andCuba has a long history, having made contributions to Cuba's fishery. In 1962,Prof. Su Jinxiang of our university was sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairsto Cuba to receive 200 pairs of food-type bullfrogs presented by Cuban PrimeMinister Castro to Premier Zhou and tried every effort with another expert tobring Cuban bullfrogs safely back to China. The bullfrogs began breeding inShanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou and other places.Many years later, bullfrogfarming began to spread all over China. Currently the domestic bullfrogseedlings are still from Cuba. In those years, Premier Chou wrote a thank-youletter specifically for this purpose and described the friendship between Chinaand Cuba as being easy to find priceless valuables but not a willingheart.
In 1993, two teachers, Wu Jiamin and LiYingsen from our university, were entrusted by the Ministry of Agriculture towork in Cuba for one year. Wu Jiamin was responsible for artificial fishbreeding, and Li Yingsen for reservoir fishing. During that year, the twoteachers played a great role in promoting the development of fishery in Cuba, andgreatly enhanced the output and production efficiency of artificial breeding oflocal fish and fishing in reservoirs. Their stories were featured by CubanNational Daily Granma.
The Consul General also went to visit our foodthermal processing center located in the Ocean Hi-Tech Park, getting to knowthe experimental site of Cuban postgraduates specializing in food sciences.