(Seychelles News Agency) - Seychelles’ Foreign Affairs Ministry has announced that the State Councilor and Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Yi, will visit the island nation on January 8.

Yi’s one-day visit is the final leg of his five-day official tour in five African countries.During his official visit to the islands, the Chinese Foreign Minister will call on President Wavel Ramkalawan at State House and also meet with his Seychellois counterpart, Minister Sylvestre Radegonde, to discuss bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

A communique from Seychelles’ Foreign Affairs Department said Yi’s visit follows “China’s 30-year tradition of choosing Africa as the destination of Chinese foreign ministers’ first overseas visit of the New Year.”

Before coming to Victoria, Yi visited Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and the Southern African country of Botswana. The Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister and his delegation will depart Seychelles on January 9. China and Seychelles established diplomatic ties in June 1976.

Yi is the second top foreign affairs official to visit Seychelles – 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean – since Ramkalawan assumed the presidency on October 26, last year.

In November, the Minister for External Affairs of India, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, made a two-day official visit to the island nation.