On November 14th, the cooperation agreement signing ceremony of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and Ural Federal University was held. President Zhong Weihe met with Victor Koksharov, president of Ural Federal University in the VIP Hall in the North Campus. The Russian delegation includes Maxim Khomyakov, vice President on Foreign Affairs, Vadim Kuzmin, the director of Department of Oriental Languages and Literature, philosophical professor Natalia Minaeva and philosophical professor Ekaterina Cherepanova. The ceremony was also attended by Fang Fanquan, the vice-president, Jiao Fangtai, director of International Cooperation and Exchange Office, Liang Xuehong, the director of the College of International Students and Yang Ke, the deputy director of Faculty of European Language and Culture.
The two sides updated the agreements between universities and furthered the cooperation and the building of Confucius Institute. Zhong Weihe extended warm welcome to the guests and introduced the history, development and education pattern of GDUFS. He stressed that education internationalization is one of the important strategies of GDUFS, which was a training base for talents on international strategy in China. He expressed the honor to cooperate with Ural Federal University which is located in Yekaterinburg (a sister city of Guangzhou). There have been projects of teacher and student exchange. He hoped for more opportunities of academic exchanges and abundant accomplishments.
Victor Koksharov thanked the warm welcome and introduced the present situation of Ural Federal University and Confucius Institute. He hoped that Confucius Institute could be a platform for further cooperation of the two universities. Victor Koksharov invited Zhong Weihe and thecolleagues to visit Yekaterinburg and Ural Federal University in the 10thanniversary of Yekaterinburg and Guangzhou being sister cities. He also provided suggestions for promoting the cooperation, such as summer and winter camp, large-scale visiting mission, and exchanging teachers.
Zhong Weihe responded positively to the invitation and promised to appoint Chinese teachers to teach in Ural Federal University. He also welcomed the professors and students to visit and study in GDUFS. The two presidents signed cooperation agreement, which witnessed another friendly cooperation since 2007 and indicated a more stable andsustainingphrase for the cooperation of the two universities.
In 2007, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies established the Confucius Institute with the National Ural Gorky University of Russia and signed a cooperative agreement. Four years later, the National Urals Technology University consolidated with National Ural Gorky University into the Ural Federal University.
