'Chinese Ambassador Scholarship' launched to encourage Chinese learning in Romania

BUCHAREST -- "Chinese Ambassador Scholarship" was launched at the Chinese Embassy in Romania on Saturday, with some 300 students, teachers, representatives of overseas Chinese community and Chinese enterprises participating in the ceremony.

"The main goal of the scholarship is to encourage Romanian students to learn Chinese and to warmly welcome as many young people as possible to join the Chinese Language connoisseurs and to become successors and heirs of the friendship between China and Romania," said Chinese Ambassador to Romania Xu Feihong.

Xu added that Chinese learning enjoys great popularity in Romania, where over 8,000 people are studying Chinese in four Confucius institutes, eight Confucius classrooms and over 100 Chinese teaching points.

About 20 students and four educators were awarded with mobile phones and cash prizes at the ceremony.

Xu told Xinhua after the ceremony that in Romania, one of the important countries along the Belt and Road, many people realize that the initiative will bring about increasing demand for talents in their country, for Romanians who know the Chinese language.

He hoped that more and more young people in Romania play an active role in various fields such as economic and trade cooperation and cultural exchanges between the two countries.

"The establishment of the Chinese Ambassador Scholarship fully demonstrates the importance attached by the Chinese Embassy to the Chinese teaching, as well as the strong support of Chinese enterprises and Chinese business associations in Romania for the Chinese teaching," Romanian co-director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Bucharest, Luminita Balan, told Xinhua.

At the awards ceremony, students also performed traditional Chinese singing, dancing, clapper talk, cross-talk and taiji.

"The performance makes me realize that I have to redouble my efforts and learn Chinese well," a student at the Confucius Institute in Bucharest told Xinhua.