Indian Prime Minister Modi opened an official account on China's microblog Sina Weibo with a warm welcome from Chinese web users on Monday.

The account has already attracted 42,170 followers. The prime minister has sent sixtweets so far, all of which are in Chinese.

The India embassy to China confirmed the news and said the words on his Weibo accountwere all examined and approved by Modi personally.

The move has been interpreted as a warm-up for his first visit to China from May 14 to 16,at the invitation by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

Modi's left his first message at 12:28 on Monday, which wrote, "Hello, China. Look forwardto interacting with Chinese friends on Weibo."

The tweet has been forwarded for 8,678 times and also gained 18,388 likes and 12,990comments.

Most of his followers applaud the gesture.

"Welcome to China, prime minister. Wish your trip in China a great success, and long livethe friendship between the Chinese and Indian people." wrote Weibo user "Bohai".

Some users invited Modi to visit their hometown, while some wondered about the primeminister's ability to speak Chinese.

Although this is his first time on a mainstream Chinese social network, Modi has exertedexpertise on various other networks. He has more than 28 million followers on Facebookand 12 million on Twitter.

During President Xi Jinping's visit to India last September, both leaders agreed to build acloser development partnership between China and India.