Respected Lt. General Javed Ashraf Qazi, Minister for Education,

Respected Mr. Cui Xiliang, President of Beijing Language and Culture University,

Respected Mr. Aziz Ahmad Khan, Rector of the National University of Modern Languages,

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honor for me today to be invited for the ceremony. First of all, on behalf of the new Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan, H.E. Mr. Luo Zhaohui, and the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad, I would like to extend to you the warmest congratulations and best wishes for the inauguration of the Confucius Institute at the National University of Modern Languages.

As a Chinese diplomat in Islamabad, I always have a feeling that each season in Pakistan can be described as a season for celebrating the friendship of Pakistan and China. Three weeks ago, the Gwadar Deep Seaport was inaugurated. Two weeks ago, on the Pakistan Day, we watched two JF-17 fighters giving a splendid fly-past performance in the capital. Today we are here celebrating the birthday of the Confucius Institute which is a special event of the development of Pak-China relations.

On the importance of this project, may I say that there are several landmark symbols of Pak-China friendship in Pakistan--on the mountains the landmark symbol is the Karakoram Highway, by the sea the landmark symbol is the Gwadar Port, in the sky the landmark symbol is JF-17 fighters, and at the hart of the land the landmark symbol will be the Confucius Institute here.

As all of you know that the purpose of the Confucius Institute is to promote the education of the Chinese language. So I would like to say a few words about language.

Historically, language was a vehicle of the spread of civilizations. In ancient times many Chinese monks and scholars visited the land of today's Pakistan and studied at the Taxila Buddhist Center. They were masters of an ancient language of Sanskrit, from which the modern language of Urdu derived a lot. They are the forefathers of historical friendship between our two peoples and we are proud of them.

Language is a vehicle for friendship. In the days of the construction of the KKH, there were two young Urdu speakers in the Chinese camps, one was Mr. Zhang Chunxiang, who had just completed his mission as the Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan and was honorably awarded Hilal-i-Pakistan conferred by the President of Pakistan. And another one, Mr. Shan Baoxiang, the Cultural Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad, who is sitting here now and is working hard for promoting cultural exchanges between our two countries and peoples. And I also know that there are many Chinese speakers in Pakistan, specially in the Pakistani Military Forces, some of them were students of NUML, and they have made their great contributions to consolidating Pak-China ties. One of them, Mr. Iftikhar Ahmed Khan, Patron-in-Chief of All Pakistan-China Friendship Association Islamabad, is also with us today. We are proud all of them.

And today I would like to specially mention the students of the Chinese Language Department of NUML. Last November, when the Chinese President, H.E. Mr. Hu Jintao was visiting Pakistan, they received the President at Shakar Parian and sang a Chinese song in the Chinese language with the Chinese President together. This exciting moment was recorded and telecasted and hundreds of millions of people in the world watched it. That picture, with so many young faces in it, has sent a very strong signal to the world that the Pak-China friendship is such a dynamic one and will be lasting forever. Now I must say we are specially proud of you.

Now let me say a few words about the Confucius Institute itself. I was told that by the end of 2006 there were over 140 Confucius Institute had been set up in 52 countries. I was surprised. What surprised me even more was that yesterday evening I searched the Internet by typing in just two English words-Confucius Institute. The results showed that there were 87,200 web pages in the Internet with these two words. Then I understood that Confucius Institute is a great cause with bright future. And now I'm sure that this afternoon there will be 100 new pages in the Internet which are about the Institute at NUML, Pakistan.

The Pak-China relations are now stepping up to a new stage characterized by people-to-people exchanges. The Governments of Pakistan and China are in the process of consultations to jointly establish an engineering university and a media science college in Pakistan. And I personally know that the Pakistani Government is considering an ambitious project to send thousands of PhD students to China in the next five years. A one-hundred-member Chinese youth delegation has just visited Pakistan and a similar Pakistani delegation will pay their visit to China within this year. And I also know that thousands of Pakistani people are doing their business in China everyday, and another thousands of Pakistan students are studying in various Chinese universities, especially for medical science. This new development requires a great number of Pakistani people who can speak Chinese. The establishment of the Confucius Institute is just on the time to meet the educational demand. We believe that the Institute will do its best and make its due contribution to the further understanding and cooperation between the two peoples. And I promise, on behalf of the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad, that we will also do our best to help the Institute and NUML as well for the same purpose.

Thank you.