China's Project Hope that aims to assist poor students in the country to return to schools made its first step to make donations overseas on Wednesday, donating 2,000 books to a Malaysia college with the support of a Malaysian-run company.

The China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF) Secretary-General Tu Meng said that 2,000 books worth 100,000 yuan in total were donated to New Era College in Malaysia.

Tu announced the donation at a get-together with Malaysian and Chinese media representatives at New Era College near here on Wednesday.

Also present were more than 100 students and teachers in a Project Hope delegation who arrived in Malaysia on a trip organized by Malaysia-China Friendship Association,

Tu said China's charity work would move abroad in future and Wednesday's donation of books could be a very good start.

However, Tu noted that the initial step did not mean that the Project Hope would be aggressively moving overseas as there were many problems in China that needed attention from all parties.

Tu said the donation of books received great support from various sectors in China.

Meanwhile, New Era College Principal Pua Eng Chong recorded his heart-felt respect to all who have supported overseas Chinese in their charity work.

Pua said the 11-year-old New Era College had laid down concrete education foundation for poor Chinese students in Malaysia.

With the forming of the college, Pua said Malaysia had successfully build a complete Chinese education system from primary to tertiary levels outside the mainland China and regions like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.

Malaysia has three main types of primary schools where each uses Malay, Chinese and Tamil as the medium language of teaching.

Source: Xinhua