Phnom Penh, May 29th (CRI Online) (Reporter Feng Hui) - The 2013 Joint Conference of Confucius Institutes in Asia was held on the afternoon of May 29th in Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Director-General of Hanban Xu Lin attended the opening ceremony of the conference and delivered speeches. 　　

Hun Sen said that China is an important economic entity that has promoted the world’s economic development, and the international standing of Chinese language is continuously improving. He encouraged Cambodian teenagers to work hard in learning the Chinese language so as to improve their competitiveness in both future career development and self-development as well.

Hun Sen mentioned that this year is the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Cambodia and is the China- Cambodia Friendship Year as well. Taking this opportunity, he spoke highly of the Chinese and the Cambodian parties for their efforts in the successful establishment of the Confucius Institute at Royal Academy of Cambodia. He said that with the joint efforts of the Royal Academy of Cambodia and the Confucius Institute, the Cambodian people were provided with the opportunity to learn Chinese, and this has also met the actual demand of Cambodian people for learning Chinese, which had made great contributions to the friendship between China and Cambodia. He said he hoped the Confucius Institute Headquarters would further promote Chinese culture and enable the world’s people to better know and understand it.

Xu Lin said that the Confucius Institute Headquarters has founded 90 Confucius Institutes and 49 Confucius Classrooms in Asia. Since 2009 when the Confucius Institute at Royal Academy of Cambodia was founded, it has been warmly welcomed by Cambodian people. Currently, the number of its registered students is more than 6,800, and the Confucius Institute has greatly promoted the cultural exchanges between Chinese people and Cambodian people. She stated that to promote the Confucius Institutes to better achieve sustainable development, the Confucius Institute would vigorously provide the training for local Chinese language teachers, compile localized teaching materials and constantly expand the educational scale by means of training sessions for teaching materials and advanced study and training of teachers in the future, so that the Confucius Institutes could become an important platform for various countries and regions to have cultural exchanges with China.

Hosted by the Confucius Institute at Royal Academy of Cambodia, the joint conference will last 3 days and it is themed by the “sustainable development of Confucius Institutes in Asia”. At the conference, four topics, including the localized construction of teaching staff, development of teaching materials with local characteristics, preparation for the 10th anniversary of the Confucius Institute next year, and implementation of “Core Teacher” program, will be discussed in detail.