Honduran President Iris Xiomara Castro Sarmiento arrived in Shanghai on Friday, starting her six-day state visit to China.

At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Castro is paying the visit from June 9 to 14.

The two heads of state will have a historic meeting to jointly chart the course for further growth of bilateral relations, according to Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

This is the first state visit to China by a Honduran president, as well as Castro's first visit to China.

The president's visit comes more than two months after China and Honduras officially established diplomatic relations and days after China inaugurated its embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.

China looks forward to taking Castro's visit as an opportunity to deepen mutual trust, expand cooperation, enhance friendship and promote the steady and sustained development of bilateral relations, said Wang.

Hua Chunying, an assistant foreign minister and also a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, greeted Castro at the airport after her plane landed in Shanghai on Friday morning.

(Cover: Honduran President Iris Xiomara Castro Sarmiento arrives in east China's Shanghai, June 9, 2023. /Xinhua)