China and Cuba established diplomatic relations on September 28th, 1960. Two months before the establishment, the governments of two countries signed the first five-year agreement on commerce and payment, which would be resigned every five years. According to the bilateral agreement, the commerce between China and Cuba is the one by agreement and keeping account. The governments of two countries negotiate every year and sign the annual trade agreement to decide the commodities that they exchange. The commercial contract on imports and exports is signed by Chinese Foreign Trade and Industrial Trade Company with Cuban Foreign Trade Company, and is implemented finally by them.

Cuba is always the main business partner of China in Latin America. Except for some years, Cuba is always the largest export market of China in Latin America. The reason that quick development on trade between China and Cuba is that the exports of the two countries match with their needs. In china, sugar is in short supply in the long time, and it is mainly supplied by importing Cuban sugar. In recent years, although the output of sugar has increased greatly, China still imports approximately 70 to 90 tons of sugar from Cuba every year. China mainly exports rice, food cans, feed, the products of the light and textile industry, the products of chemical industry and medicament, hardware and tools and so on to Cuba. The Chinese export proportion of the electrical engineering products to Cuba, such as watercrafts, farming machines, bicycles and so on, increased constantly in recent years. Moreover, the governments of the two countries have singed the cooperative agreement on science that the two parties would communicate and cooperate on agriculture, fishing, sugar cane planting and byproducts.