Distinguished President XU Ningsheng

Chancellor Scott St John

Board members of Confucious Institue in auckland

Distinguished guests, friends

Ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me pleasure to be here today to be part of this great event. At the outset, I wish to extend, on behalf of the Chinese Consulate General in Auckland, my warm congratulations to the Confucius Institute, the University of Auckland and Fudan University for the unveiling of the Model Confucius Institute in Auckland and the Fudan-UoA Centre for China Studies in Oceania.

I also would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt appreciation to UOA for your consistent efforts and support to promote the educational exchanges and the bilateral relationship between China and NZ. and here I want to mention in particular your warm welcome extended to Guangdong Party Secretary Li Xi, political bureau member of CPC central committee when he paid his successful visit to NZ and to UoA not long ago and today to President Xu ningsheng of Fudan University. My warmest Welcome to President Xu and his delegation to Auckland as well.

The Confucius Institute in Auckland was established by the University of Auckland in cooperation with Fudan University and the Confucius Institute Headquarter. Since it was launched in 2007, the Confucius Institute in Auckland has, through organizing a variety of projects and activities, done a lot and made remarkable achievements in helping New Zealand schools set up and develop Chinese language teaching programs. Many honors have been achieved in that regard. Therefore, the title of Global Model Confucius Institutes is well deserved. The success of the Confucious Institute in Auckland is a very good example and role model of the educational cooperation between China and NZ as well.

Confucius Institutes are windows and mirrors of China's reform and opening up in the field of education. Over the past 40 years, through the hard work of the chinese people, tremendous progress has been made in China's development. China's reform and opening up, has been instrumental to the political, economic, social, cultural and educational transformation to China and brought great benefit to the world. Along with the fast development and fast growing ties with the rest of the world, the desire of China to get to know the world as well as the world to understand China has been increased at the same time. Only if we understand each other better and open up to each other wider, can we make progress and build a community with shared future for mankind together with other countries.

Language is the best key to understand a country. As President Xi Jinping stated, Confucius Institutes belong to China as well as to the world.They are important platforms for the world to understand China, effective channels for promoting mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation and bridges for fostering people to people exchanges between China and rest of the world. Yesterday at the opening ceremony of the First International Import Expo held in shanghai, President Xi stressed in his speech that China will stay true to the founding mission of reform and opening-up, draw on successful experiences in the past 4 decades and raise quality and level of opening-up and reform, including speeding up educational opening up. The further opening up of China will provide brighter prospects for Confucius Institutes' development.

I still remember that more than two years ago, Director Nora Yao took me here for a visit, and depicted the bright prospect for the Confucius Institute in Auckland. At that time, the building was still under construction. Today, through the joint efforts of all parties, it has been renovated and refurbished. Now the Confucius Institute is located here in this historic heritage building dated back to the late 19th century. Today the unveiling of Fudan-UoA Center for China Studies in Oceania represents deepened academic exchanges between Fudan University and University of Auckland, and I am confident that this center will become another important platform for strengthening mutual understanding, cooperation and friendship between China and New Zealand and other oceania countries as well.

I sincerely hope that the people and friends of our two countries will use these two platforms to facilitate the Belt and Road construction between China and NZ and make more contribution to promoting the friendly relations and mutual understanding between China and New Zealand as well as to the diversities of world civilization based on mutual respect, friendly consultation,equality and mutual benefit. Once again, my warm congratulations and best wishes to the Confucius Institute and to Fudan-UoA China Study Center in Oceania. Thank you!