LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVING MORE CHINESE STUDENTS, AND TEACHING CHINESE TO MORE STUDENTS AT IUE

A cooperation agreement has been signed between Izmir University of Economics (IUE) and Shanghai International Studies University – SISU. President of Board of Trustees stated that they wanted to welcome more Chinese students.

Ekrem Demirtaş, Chairman of Izmir Chamber of Commerce (ITO) Board of Directors and President of IUE Board of Trustees, Rebii Akdurak, Chairman of the Council of ITO and Member of Board of Trustees, Cüneyt Güleç, Vice Chairman of ITO Board of Directors and Member of Board of Trustees, Cahit Yaşar Eren, Member of IUE Board of Trustees, and Yuan Peng, Head of IUE Department of Chinese, visited SISU as part of the business trip of Izmir Chamber of Commerce to China. The Turkish delegation was welcomed by SISU President Prof. Cao Deming and administrators. 

SISU President Prof. Deming stated that Turkey and China had a traditional and strong friendship at the meeting held for signing of the cooperation agreement. Deming gave information about the University and said that it was established in 1949 as a state university. “Half of our students study in economics and other fields, and the other half study languages. We are teaching 32 languages. Department of Turkish was established in 2011 with the attendance of former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. We do not teach Turkish only, but give information about Turkey as well,” said Deming and stated that they believed the graduates would act as ambassadors for building better relationships between the two countries. Deming pointed that they wanted to do more cooperation with Izmir University of Economics.

‘Strong friendship between China and Turkey’

President Ekrem Demirtaş also stated that they wanted to improve the relationship between China, a locomotive of world economy, and Turkey, based on the strong friendship between the two countries. President Demirtaş stated that Izmir Economics was one of the most successful and preferred foundation universities in Turkey even though it was only 16 years old. “The medium of instruction is English. We also teach a second foreign language. There are 1500 students in the School of Foreign Languages. We teach 10 foreign languages and Chinese is one of them. And Yuan Peng, Head of IUE Department of Chinese, is even interpreting for us during this trip. There is a great interest towards Chinese even though it is a difficult language. 50 of our students preferred Chinese as a second foreign language,” said Demirtaş.

President Demirtaş, who reported that IUE wanted to establish closer and stronger cooperation between SISU, stated the following:

“We want to have more Chinese students, and teach Chinese to more students at IUE at the same time. Send your students for internship, for summer school. We are going to set up a Confucius Center at the University. We are looking forward to receiving your support. The Embassy of China in Izmir also promised to support us.  There is also going to be Chinese corner at the Library. A new class will be opened. There will be Chinese books. We also need your support on that. And we will be helping you with Turkish resources. Let us increase our cooperation in every way. Students, who are going to graduate from both universities, will have good command of Turkish and Chinese, and contribute greatly to building better relationships and cooperation between the two countries.”

Later, President Demirtaş and Prof. Deming signed the cooperation agreement between the two universities.