Chinese Embassy Sponsors 3 Nigerian VCS On Smart Agric Course In Beijing

The Chinese Embassy in Nigeria has concluded arrangements to sponsor three Nigerian universities’ vice-chancellors on a course in China.

The two weeks training will focus on the “Application and Development of Smart Agriculture for Developing Countries” and will be hosted in Beijing.

The General Secretary of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, Prof. Aboki Ochefu announced this.

Ochefu noted that the programme sponsorship was made possible through the existing partnership between the embassy and the Committee.

During a meeting of the Committee and the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Cui Jianchun in early March, the top diplomat had promised the university chief executives a robust, engaging and mutually beneficial relationship for a stronger and better China-Nigeria diplomatic relationship.

The global programme organized by the Center of International Cooperation Service (CICS), Peoples’s Republic of China, will give 35 agriculture experts worldwide, insights into intelligent agriculture.

The Centre is a public service agency under the direct administration of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) of China.

Its main functions include providing translation services, conducting multi-bilateral foreign seminars, receiving and sending multi-bilateral exchange groups under the governmental framework, implementing foreign technical cooperation and assistance projects, implementing multilateral South-South cooperation projects with FAO, etc., organizing international conferences and providing services concerning passport and visa for public affairs.

Since 2006, the Centre has organized more than 300 seminars and seminar courses for more than 6,000 participants on subjects such as agricultural project management, sustainable agricultural development, agriculture and climate change, intelligent agriculture, agrarian water resources management, agricultural trade, agricultural land management, livestock, and poultry breeding management, animal disease prevention and control, planting management and technology, agricultural machinery maintenance, and cotton breeding, production and trade.

The Committee and its partners, Red Sapphire and Afric-China Media Centre that helped facilitate this engagement noted that the programme would further deepen the existing bilateral ties between Nigeria and China.

They thanked the Chinese ambassador for his kind gesture in supporting the leadership of the Nigerian university system.