Cuba, Iran Sign Multiple MOUs to Strengthen Relations

Cuba and Iran signed multiple memoranda of understanding (MOUs) Wednesday as pledges to collaborate in the areas including trade, sports, agriculture, health and biotechnology.

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Iran's Deputy Minister of Health, Mohsen Asadi Lari, and Cuba's Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, inked the MOUs at the 17th Session of the Intergovernmental Commission for Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, which was held in Havana, Cuba.

During the bilateral meeting, officials and businessmen from both nations also discussed financial and investment relations.

At the end of the negotiations, Malmierca additionally affirmed that Cuba was interested in increasing bilateral trade relationship with Tehran in medical services and biopharmaceutical industries as well.

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.

"Iran and Cuba sign new cooperation agreements."

A collaboration between the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation of Cuba and the Iranian counterpart, and a prioritized bilateral scientific exchange for plant health and protection as well as medicines registration between the Center for State Control of the Quality of Drugs in Cuba and the Administration of Drugs and Foods in Iran were also tabled.

"The will of our countries' leaders is materialized in an effective economic and technological collaboration, whose fruits, beneficial to the peoples of the two nations, we will see in the near future," the Iranian Minister said.

Cuba and Iran first established diplomatic relations in 1979 and have maintained strong bilateral cooperation, which includes twelve agreements currently in effect for the exemption of diplomatic and service visas.

In September 2018, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani met with the Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, to evaluate proposals for health services-related collaboration.

Over the past year, Diaz-Canel has maintained an intensive international agenda aimed at strengthening relations with several ally countries, which resulted in the signing of MOUs with Laos, North Korea, Spain and China, among others.