Mega-city mission for Lincoln

Mega-city mission for Lincoln

A Lincoln delegation has been visiting one of the world’s mega-cities to strengthen the University’s ties with China.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor of International and Business Development of Lincoln University, Jeremy Baker, led a team to Beijing — population 21 million– earlier this month.

Amongst the Lincoln delegation were Senior lecturer of Agribusiness and Commerce, Dr Ian MacDonald, Director of Great China Student Recruitment, Mr Jeff Sun, and Lincoln’s education partner, New Zealand College of Business (NZCB) Director, Mr Jason Ho.

They were there to progress co-operation arrangements with the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and one of the top Universities in China, Peking University.

The CSC is a non-profit institution affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education that provides financial assistance to a significant amount of Chinese students wishing to study abroad overseas.

It also caters for overseas students wishing to study in China, in order to develop educational, scientific and technological, and cultural exchanges.

Lincoln’s Business Development Manager, Dr Samuel Yu, says the visit from the University’s senior staff was important to cement relationships with the Chinese authoritative institutions.

“It is a relationship we have been doing a lot of work on in the background in the past few years to establish together with our teams in International, Business Development and Academic faculties” he says.

The Lincoln delegates met with CSC’s Deputy Secretary-General, Mr Shi-hai Cao, and division senior management, Mr Zhi-xue Dong, Miss Yiu Chen and Mr Peter Sheng-Gang Wang.

“These interactions will help NZ to further develop education, economic and trade cooperation with one of the biggest markets in the world, as international education contributed about $3 billion to NZ economy last year. This also gives our graduates opportunities to apply their specialist knowledge to global issues” Dr Yu says.

Lincoln is one of the newest members in the alliance of “The New Zealand Centre” (NZC) at Peking University, which was founded in 2007. It is as an education centre especially set up to promote everything New Zealand.

Mr Baker and NZC Director, Prof Shusen Liu, signed a co-operation agreement in 2014, and Prof Liu also visited Lincoln in May 2015, signifying a crucial move for Lincoln University to becoming an important active member of the NZC, and expand discussions about the areas of agribusiness, food economics and safety, are topical for both China and Lincoln, valuable for exploring potential collaborations.

Lincoln University’s thematic missions have been focused on promoting further collaborations in agribusiness and agriculture-related trades between New Zealand and our export markets.

The Lincoln delegates also visited the China Education Expo Fair on October 24at the China National Convention Centre as part of their visit in Beijing along with Minister Steven Joyce, as NZ is the Country of Honour at the Expo this year.

ENDS

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