A dozen employees of the healthcare industry in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have left for Timor-Leste, where they will undertake the ninth Chinese medical mission to that country, the China News Service (CNS) reports.

The Chinese state-run news agency says the party has expertise in radiology, cardiovascular medicine, gastrointestinal surgery, intensive care, acupuncture, obstetrics and gynaecology, anaesthesiology, urology, orthopaedics and nursing, along with skill in interpretation of languages and cooking.

The members of the party trained for the mission for eight months, before leaving on Tuesday for Timor-Leste, where they were due to get on with their work straight away, CNS says.

The medical missions China has sent to Timor-Leste since 2004 had attended to over 300,000 patients there by last year, according The Chinese Communist Party newspaper, the People’s Daily.