Minister of Higher Education of Cuba Visited BJTU

On the afternoon of October 19, 2023, President YU Zujun met with the visiting delegation led by Walter Baluja García, Minister of Higher Education of Cuba, María VictoriaVillavicencio Plasencia, Director of the Department of International Relations of the Ministry of Higher Education of Cuba, and Aileen Díaz Bernal, Director of Education Exchanges of the Cuban Embassy in China, in the company of BJTU’s Vice President YAN Xuedong.

YU Zujun welcomed the visit of Walter Baluja García and his delegation, and gave a brief introduction to BJTU’s history, featured disciplines, talent training, and contribution to the national rail transit construction. He reviewed the long-term history of cooperation between BJTU and Cuba, and hoped that in the future, the two sides will, based on the existing cooperation and under the framework of the "Belt and Road", continue to promote cooperation in master's and doctoral talent training in transportation, information management, scientific research and exchange of teachers and students, and sports and art exchanges between China and Cuba.

Minister Walter Baluja García thanked BJTU for its warm hospitality and long-term training of Cuban students. He noted that he had just attended the 3rd Belt & Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing and talked with HUAI Jinpeng, Minister of Education of China. He hoped that in the future, with the support of both the Chinese and Cuban governments, the two sides will promote cooperation in teacher and student exchanges, talent training, cooperative scientific research in the fields of transportation, information management, new energy, and the establishment of Sino-Cuban research center, and he also invited BJTU teachers and students to visit Cuba in due course.

The meeting was also attended by responsible personnel from the College of International Education and the Office of International Affairs.

Dr. Walter Baluja García was born in Havana, Cuba in 1974 and received his Ph.D. from Jose Antonio Echeverria Polytechnic Institute in Havana, Cuba, in 2007. He currently serves as the Minister of Higher Education of Cuba, a deputy to the National Assembly of Cuba and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.