Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday departed for Havana - the first leg of his Central American tour during which he will also visit Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico.

The RF foreign minister on February 11-13 will hold talks with the Cuban leadership and take part in the XIX Havana International Book Fair, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.

“Russia regards Cuba as a key partner in the Latin American region,” the diplomat specified. “The bilateral political dialogue, including at the summit and high levels, is of a regular and confidential nature.” “The issue of the deepening and diversification of the Russian-Cuban trade-economic and financial-investment relations, issues of advancement of major bilateral cooperation projects in the sphere of the electric power industry, hydrocarbons, transport infrastructure, biopharmaceuticals and high technologies will be high on the forthcoming talks’ agenda,” Nesterenko noted.

“The bilateral trade, which makes about 260 million dollars, objectively does not correspond to the existing potential of our countries. We hope that the improvement of the situation will contribute to a success of the 9th session of the intergovernmental commission on trade-economic cooperation in Havana in April 2010,” he pointed out.