Hon. Prof. Peter Mutharika, Minister of Education, Science and Technology,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good afternoon. It gives me great pleasure to visit the hometown of H.E. Prof. Bingu wa Mutharika, President of the Republic of Malawi, and witness the Ground Breaking Ceremony of Thyolo Secondary School, which is a special gift from the Chinese people to our Malawian brothers and sisters.

Today, we are here to join His Excellency’s efforts to develop this country by concrete actions. The Thyolo Secondary School, which will cost over 200 million Kwacha, could accommodate more than 300 students. The school, once completed, will be one of the best secondary schools in this area, and will improve the education conditions of Thyolo and the surrounding areas.

I am full of confidence that the contractor of the project, Hualong Construction Company, which has been in Malawi for many years, will present a high quality school to the Malawian people on time.

I hope the authorities and the people of Thyolo actively participate in the construction of this school, and render generous assistance to the contractor. This school belongs to you and your children.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This month, we are going to celebrate the third anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Malawi. Three years ago, H.E. President Mutharika made a great decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. And Hon. Prof. Peter Mutharika was one of the important members of the delegation to Beijing.

Since then, our bilateral relations have developed fast, and have yielded tangible and visible results.

We have kept our pledges to help Malawi build a series of landmark projects. The New Parliament Building has been completed and handed over to the Malawian Government this May. The construction of the Five-Star Hotel and International Conference Center is processing well, and the framework of the building will be completed by the end of this year. The Karonga-Chitipa Road will be completed and open to traffic by the end of next year.

The economic and trade cooperation between China and Malawi has reached a new high. In order to encourage Malawi’s export to China, we have granted unilaterally tariff exemption treatment to 65% items of Malawi’s exports to China. In a phased manner, the treatment will finally cover 95%.

The cooperation between China and Malawi in other fields is also fruitful. Up to now, China has provided a total of 98 governmental scholarships to Malawi, and has invited more than 500 Malawian officials and professionals to visit China or attend training programs. At this stage, 17 Chinese doctors are working in Malawi. Last month, at the invitation of Bingu Silver Grey Foundation, a team of 9 Chinese doctors came to Malawi and offered free operations to cataract patients.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

H.E. President Mutharika once said that education is the key to the development of human resources, which is the basis for economic development. I am glad to see that under the great leadership of H.E. President Mutharika, the Malawian government has put education as one of the nine “priorities within priorities”, and has taken various measures to improve the education standard, including rehabilitation of schools, construction of girls’ hostels and new teacher training colleges. The Malawian government also made a foresight plan to establish five universities around the country in the coming decade.

As a sincere friend and important development partner of Malawi, China has put education as one of the key areas in the cooperation with Malawi. In the coming years, China will continue to join the efforts of Malawian Government to develop its education cause.

We will build the Malawian University of Science and Technology(MUST). I am looking forward to attending the ground breaking ceremony of the university in Thyolo next year.

Besides of MUST, we will build a China-Malawi Friendship Primary School in Lilongwe. Our two governments are discussing on the details of the project.

We will continue to provide Chinese Government Scholarships to Malawi. The scholarships, which covers tuition fee, living allowance, air tickets to China, are open to the general public of Malawi.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In conclusion, I wish to assure you that, with our joint efforts, the friendly relations between our two countries will be further developed and bring more benefits to our two peoples.

Malawi woye!

China-Malawi friendship woye!