The Headquarters of the Confucius Institute and the University of Liberia agreed to jointly set up a Confucius Institute on the Campus of UL. Chinese Ambassador to Liberia, H.E. Mr. Zhou Yuxiao for the Headquarters of the Confucius Institute and the president of UL, Dr. Al-Hassan Conteh, signed the agreement and spoke at the ceremony held at the Chinese Embassy in Liberia on December 21.

Ambassador Zhou said language is a bridge for communication and to master a language is to get hold of a key to the door to a new world. The Ambassador noted that since China's reform and opening, the government of China has encouraged its people to learn foreign languages. Over the past thirty years, China has benefited a lot from foreign culture, science and technology through the media of foreign languages. Ambassador Zhou said Chinese is a language with the greatest number of speakers in the world and to be able to use Chinese means to be able to communicate with one fourth of the world's total population who are Chinese speaking people. The setting up of th Confucius Institute is to meet the need of people of different countries to learn Chinese and Chinese culture. Since the establishment of the first Confucius Institute in 2004, 210 Confucius Institutes have been set up in 64 countries and many more institutions in different countries have filed requests for setting up Confucius Institute. Ambassador Zhou held that the Confucius Institute has become a driving force for cultural communication between China and foreign countries, promoting a harmonious world and mutual understanding among peoples from different countries.

The Chinese Ambassador was hopeful that, if everything goes smoothly, the Confucius Institute will open in March, 2008 which will, in the early stage, engage mainly in Chinese language teaching and later on provide cultural lessons and training courses for people who intend to visit China or to study or do business in China. Ambassador Zhou referred to the establishment of the Confucius Institute as a milestone in the cultural exchange between China and Liberia which will further strengthen the friendly relationship between the two countries and wished the Confucius Institute would open as scheduled and achieve its goal as expected.

For his part, the President of UL, Dr. Conteh thanked the Ambassador for the support of the Chinese government and the Embassy in Liberia's education sector. Dr. Conteh mentioned that two days ago he signed an agreement on the construction of the China-aided Fendell campus of UL. Dr. Conteh said both the projects show that the Chinese government attaches great importance to Liberian education course. The President promised to implement the University's obligations to ensure an early opening of the Institute.

The Vice President of UL and Political Counselor Mr. Gou Haodong of the Embassy were also present at the ceremony.