The general secretary from Casa Asia and head of the Confucius Institute of Madrid and Barcelona, Montserrat Riba, has visited this week the European University of the Atlantic campus in the Scientific and Technological Park of Cantabria.
Casa Asia is a consortium formed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs -through the Spanish Cooperation Agency for International Development (AECID)-, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Barcelona and Madrid City Councils that works, since its foundation in 2001, promoting relations between societies from Asia, Pacific and Spain in the institutional, economic, cultural and educational fields.
During her visit to Santander, Riba had the opportunity to meet her counterpart in UNEATLANTICO, Roberto Ruiz, who explained to her the will of the academic institution to promote the relations with Asia, and in particular, with China.
In fact, Ruiz told her that the University has six bilateral agreements with educational institutions of the Asian country, and that currently there are many students with this nationality studying their degrees in Santander.
The general secretary also manifested the growing interest in Spanish in Asia. Indeed, she said, “this language is the ninth most demanded in China, and the third in South Korea”. Moreover, she added that governments are fostering measures to promote students’ internalization.
In addition, she cited Indonesia as an example related to the latter point, a country that seeks to strengthen higher education and promotes policies that facilitate students to study abroad.
The Asia-Pacific region has consolidated in recent years as one of the most dynamic geographic poles in the world, it contains nearly 60% of the population and it produces around 30% of the global GDP.
