President Hu Jintao will send a special envoy to South Sudan for the independence celebrations of the new country later this week, the foreign ministry announced on Tuesday.

Jiang Weixin, minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, will go to Juba, capital of the new state, on Saturday, ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a press briefing.

South Sudan voted to secede from north in a referendum in January, which is part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 to end two decades of civil war in the largest Africa nation.