April 14, 2018, a delegation of Northern Cape, South Africa, headed by MEC Shushu and MEC Gigaba, visited Hebei GEO University, attending the opening ceremony of Hebei GEO University Kimberley Diamond Research, Promotion and Business Incubation Center and discussing issues of further cooperation. In the delegation, there were also officials of the government of Northern Cape Province and staff members from Kimberley Diamond Jewelry Incubator (KDJI) and Kimberley International Diamond and Jewelry Academy (KIDJA). Wang Zhongqun, Chiefof Hebei Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs, Hou Jianguo, Director of International Cooperation and Exchange Division of Hebei Education Department, Yu Dong, Chairman of Hebei Association for International Exchange of Personnel, Liu Jialin, HGU’s distinguished expert and academician of CAS, Wang Fengming, President of HGU and Zhang Xiaoping, Vice-president of HGU, all attended the ceremony.
At the beginning of the ceremony, President Wang Fengming delivered a welcome speech, extending warm welcome to the delegation came far from South Africa and expressing heartfelt gratitude to all the officials, experts and faculty members who promoted this cooperation. He said that in the recent years, Hebei GEO University has been attaching great importance to international exchange and cooperation, especially those confirm to the Belt and Road Initiative. Therefore, through years of hard work, we have expanded our communication with east Europe and Africa and have established extensive cooperation colleges and universities in countries including South Africa, Czech Republic and Russia. He described the opening ofHebei GEO University Kimberley Diamond Research, Promotion and Business Incubation Center as a new milestone of HGU’s international cooperation which has built a high level platform for the two parties’ innovation and entrepreneurship, and extend more space for HGU’s research and production cooperation in diamond and jewelry. He also hoped that on the basis of this cooperation, the two parties could expand our fields of cooperation and achieve mutual development and win-win results.
MEC Shushu indicated in his speech that Kimberley of Northern Cape Province is the birthplace of modern culture of diamond as well as the cradle of South Africa’s industrial civilization. He hoped that the two parties’ cooperation would not only benefit the two counties’ people nowadays, but also, in the future, open a new chapter for the friendship between the two countries. He also expressed his expectation to see the excellent research teams of HGU to conduct researching works in South Africa as soon as possible and to see more exchange and visits between the two countries, and therefore make the ties between China and South Africa to last forever.
During the ceremony, Mr. Wang Zhongqun, Mr. Steenkamp and Mr. Wang Lisheng, Dean of the School of Diamond and Material Technology, also delivered inspiring speeches, expressing their great expectations for further cooperation between the two parts.
With the passionate applause, Mr. Shushu, Ms. Gigaba, Mr. Van Der Ross, Mr. Steenkamp together with President Wang Fengming, Academician Liu Jialin, Mr. Wang Zhongde and Mr. Hou Jianguo unveiled the plate for Hebei GEO University Kimberley Diamond Research, Promotion and Business Incubation Center.
In the afternoon, HGU had a meeting with the experts from KDJI, KIDJA and Sol Plaatje University on issues including how to run Hebei GEO University Kimberley Diamond Research, Promotion and Business Incubation Center, how to realize the cooperation with Sol Plaatje University and how to build research center in Africa. Throughout the meeting, we reached cooperative intents in numerous areas such as faculty visiting, students training and broadcast the culture of diamond via new media.
During this visit, Professor Ballim, President of Sol Plaatje University, delivered a lecture for the faculty members and students of Civil Engineering.
The gift given by the guests: a sample of Kimberlite
