On 18 December 2020, SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov visited the Centre for Language Education and Cooperation under the Chinese Ministry of Education, where he met with Director General Ma Jianfei.
The parties discussed various aspects of training specialists fluent in foreign languages in the SCO countries.
Ma Jianfei spoke about the activity of the Confucius Institutes Network. According to him, there are currently 541 institutions in 162 countries around the world, which makes the network an important platform for teaching Chinese abroad.
The centre's director general also noted that language exchange and cooperation with the SCO countries is a priority for China, which is indicated by the work of 66 Confucius Institutes in 17 SCO countries.
In turn, Vladimir Norov praised the centre's contribution to the promotion of language exchange between China and other countries. According to him, the total population of the SCO countries, with the exception of China, is almost 2 billion people, and there is a huge demand for learning Chinese.
He further stated that since the establishment of the SCO, more than 1,400 documents have been signed, 70 percent of them concerning security, and great efforts are being made to expand trade and economic cooperation within the SCO. In this regard, he believes the need for linguists is also growing.
Vladimir Norov proposed strengthening cooperation between the SCO countries in teaching foreign languages, joint publication and translation of literature of the SCO nations, organising song contests and summer camps for young people, videoconferences with SCO countries on teaching Chinese and developing higher education.
The parties agreed to continue further cooperation.