Madam Xu Lin awarded Malagasy Officer of the National Order

ANTANANARIVO, June 27 (Xinhua) – Madagascar’s Prime Minister Kolo Roger, when meeting in his office with visiting Director General of Hanban Madam Xu Lin, expressed his hope that Madagascar would deepen the cooperation with China.

Kolo Roger noted that the Malagasy government always places a premium on China-Madagascar relations and wishes to strengthen the cooperation with China in various fields, adding that China’s rapid development in recent years has made China the second largest economy in the world, and that Madagascar really takes pride in China’s extraordinary accomplishments. He said that since he took office in April this year, he had sent work teams to strengthen exchanges with enterprises with Chinese capital in Madagascar, and in order to learn more experience to accelerate Madagascar’s development, he had also dispatched a group of people to China.

Kolo Roger awarding the Officer of the National Order to Madam Xu Lin at the ceremony

Madam Xu Lin awarded the Officer of the National Order

Kolo Roger said that learning Chinese is important and effective for cultural exchanges between the two countries, and that his own daughter is learning Chinese too. He remarked that the Confucius Institute at University of Antananarivo has promoted the exchanges and mutual understanding between China and Madagascar by training for Madagascar a great many talents with proficiency in Chinese, and he hopes that the Confucius Institute will contribute more to the development of bilateral relations as well as China-Madagascar exchanges in the future.

After the meeting, Kolo Roger held a ceremony at Premier House, where he awarded the Officer of the National Order to Madam Xu.

Director General of Hanban Madam Xu Lin (R) and Malagasy Prime Minister Kolo Roger

Madam Xu expressed her gratitude to the prime minister by saying that her receiving the Officer of the National Order is an embodiment of the friendship between the two countries, and that she will step up to enhance the China-Madagascar cultural communication and cooperation.

On 26, Madam Xu was bestowed an honorary doctorate degree by the University of Antananarivo.

By He Xianfeng