Havana (VNA) - Speaking on television on Monday, Cuban President Fidel Castro said Viet Nam has always given timely support to Cuba.

He said every year, Viet Nam provides Cuba with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rice of  increasingly high quality.

The Cuban leader also praised Viet Nam's high economic growth rate of 7.5 percent.

The Cuban President was happy about the successful conversion from the US dollar to the convertible Cuban peso, which has helped Cuba recover its financial sovereignty, saying he hoped that the new currency would be recognised internationally.