The Addis Ababa Confucius Institute Hosts a Graduation Ceremony for its Ethiopian Diplomats’ Chinese Training Program

Addis Ababa, July 17 (by Liang Shanggang, XINHUANET) – the Addis Ababa Confucius Institute held a graduation ceremony for 25 Ethiopian diplomats attending its Chinese program. Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia Gu Xiaojie and Amb. Mahadi Ahmed, Director General of the Office of Middle East, Asia and Ocinea Affairs of Ethiopian Foreign Ministry participated in the graduation ceremony and awarded certificates and prizes to diplomats.

Gu Xiaojie praised diplomats’ hard work in improving their Chinese proficiency and deepening their understanding of Chinese culture in such a short period of time. He hopes that the two sides will make a concerted effort to keep on making full use of the Confucius Institutes’ role as a cultural platform to further strengthen the cultural exchanges and non-governmental contacts between the two countries.

Amb. Mahadi Ahme also expressed his appreciations to the Confucius Institute for offering such training programs and encouraged the young diplomats participating to go on to study Chinese diligently and contribute to closer links in Ethiopian-Sino relations. He also hopes that the Addis Ababa Confucius Institute will organize more training programs of such kind in order to enable more Ethiopians to learn about Chinese language and culture.

The student representative said that the training program has allowed diplomats to learn some basic Chinese knowledge and develop their understanding of China; this will be of great help during their future careers.

Zhai Fengjie, Director of the Addis Ababa Confucius Institute explained that students have shown strong interest in Chinese language and culture throughout the two month training program and have made dramatic progress in increasing their Chinese proficiency. The Confucius Institute will organize more Chinese programs to meet Ethiopian people’s demands for the learning of Chinese language and culture.

The Addis Ababa Confucius Institute, officially founded on Feb. 23 of 2010, now has in the region of 300 students learning Chinese.