New Delhi, May 4 (IANS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Twitter on Monday that he has joined Chinese microblogging website Weibo.

Weibo is often called the Twitter of China.

The prime minister uploaded an image of his comment on Weibo.

"Hello China! Looking forward to interacting with Chinese friends through Weibo," he said in a message written in Mandarin and English.

An official statement later said: "The Prime Minister's Office also maintains a strong presence on social media. This is in sync with his vision of a digital India, where technology plays a pivotal role in governance and policy making."

The announcement came ahead of Modi's visit to China, scheduled from May 14 to 16.

Twitter is banned in China, and Facebook is highly restricted.

Modi has a prominent presence on social media, with 28,144,058 followers on Facebook, while the PMO India official page has 8,666,555 likes.

On Twitter, Modi's own account as 12 million followers and the PMO India official page has 5.9 million followers.

By 3 p.m., Modi had around 20,500 followers, over 1600 comments, and over 500 forwards on Weibo.

Sina Weibo is a Chinese microblogging website, one of the most popular sites in China, in use by well over 30 percent of Internet users.