On March 22, 2012, Mr. Cai Jinbiao , the newly appointed Chinese Ambassador to Malta visited the Confucius Institute at the University of Malta, in the accompany of the Political Counselor, Mr. Fu Zhimin, and had a cordial talk with Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute, Prof. Wang Ying, as well as all the Chinese teachers.

Newly Appointed Chinese Ambassador Cai Jinbiao Visited Confucius Institute at the University of Malta

During the talk with Prof. Wang Ying, Mr. Cai patiently listened to her introduction about the Confucius Institute at the University of Malta, and exchanged views with Prof. Wang on future work prospects.

Mr. Cai affirmatively evaluated the positive role played by the Confucius Institute in promoting Chinese language and culture as well as enhancing mutual understanding between the people of two countries. He also understood that the difficulties existing in present work. Once again, he emphasized that the Chinese embassy to Malta will strongly support the construction of the Confucius Institute. Meanwhile, His Excellency also cared about the working and living conditions of Chinese teachers in Malta and shared his years of overseas experiences with them. Then Mr. Cai encouraged the teachers to continue contributing their efforts to the spread of Chinese language and culture in Malta.

Confucius Institute at University of Malta was co-founded by Hanban and University of Malta (The Chinese co-operation university is Xiamen University), since October2009. The Confucius Institute at the University of Malta has not only set up courses for the students in the university, but also designed a number of short-term courses to meet the different demands from the society. In addition, the Confucius Institute at the University of Malta was also keen on introducing Chinese language and culture courses to local primary and secondary schools. The two-yeardiploma course will have the first graduates in July this year. At the moment, a BA course in Chinese is in preparation, and is scheduled to start in October, 2012.