Professor Im Sio Kei, Acting President of MPI, noted that the cooperation in education between the Institute and the Hubei Province began in 2015 under the support and encouragement of the Macao SAR Government and the People’s Government of Hubei Province to align with the SAR Government’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative. In addition to nurturing Hubei talents who will be capable of conducting trade with Portuguese-speaking countries, MPI has also admitted outstanding students from Hubei to pursue undergraduate studies in Chinese-Portuguese Translation and Interpretation, Sino-Lusophone Trade Relations, Computing, Accounting and Chinese-English Translation. The first batch of outstanding Hubei students, who are now in the second year of studies, are currently on a one-year exchange in Portugal as part of their degree programmes. Through these initiatives MPI will contribute to the nurturing of talents who would play an important role in the cooperation between Hubei and countries along the Belt and Road. Hubei students have been studying hard and achieving remarkable results in various competitions held at MPI and elsewhere.  It is hoped that they would one day become Chinese-Portuguese bilinguals for Hubei or elsewhere in China and would excel in various professions.

During the meeting Mr. Nie Changbin, Vice Secretary-General of the People’s Government of Hubei Province, thanked MPI for its support towards the education sector of Hubei. He stated that the main purpose of the trip was to pay a visit to Hubei students in Macao and to gain a better understanding of their progress of learning. Mr. Nie has great hopes for the outcome of their studies, wishing that one day they would contribute their knowledge to fostering the economic cooperation between Hubei, China and the Lusophone countries. Mr. Nie further expressed his intention to expand the realm of cooperation between MPI and universities in Hubei in various aspects to foster collaboration between teachers and students of the two parties. At the same time Mr. Nie invited outstanding MPI students, including exchange students from countries along the Belt and Road, to come to Wuhan and Hubei Province to understand the local culture and way of life. Mr. Nie also agreed to provide opportunities of new business ventures for graduates of MPI.

Hubei students at MPI expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the visiting representatives for the latter’s care and support, and to the Government and the Institute for the attentive arrangements whilst they and other Chinese Mainland students are studying in Macao. The Hubei students were deeply impressed by the Institute’s principles of student-centeredness, its learning environment, and complimented the Institute on its ideal learning atmosphere. They promised to continue studying hard and leverage the opportunity at the Institute to ascend to a brighter future, and contribute to the betterment of Hubei and China.

The Hubei delegation took a guided tour of MPI’s campus, noting the progress of its research and development projects, such as those conducted at the Chinese-Portuguese-English Machine Translation Laboratory, the MPI-Melco Gaming and Entertainment Information Technology Research and Development Centre and the MPI-UCLA Joint Research Center in Ubiquitous Computing.

Other delegates from Hubei included: Mr. Huang Mouhong, Vice-Chairman of the Department of Commerce of Hubei Province, Mr. Yan Xinqiao, Associate Counsel of Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of Hubei Province, Doctor Tu Shanfeng, Vice Secretary-General of the Wuhan Municipal People’s Government, Mr. Yang Zichuan, Deputy Director of the Second Office of Secretariat of Administration Office of the Hubei Provincial Government, Ms. Chu Cuihua, Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of Hubei Province; Mr. Chen Wuyi, Researcher of the Department of Commerce of Hubei Province and Mr. He Jiashuo, Principal Staff of the Department of Commerce of Hubei Province.