MoU with Meizhou City People's Government

Zhang (left) and Prof Ewe with the MoU agreements while Tang, Tan Sri Hew, and Tan Sri Lee look on

UTAR and Meizhou City People’s Government (MCPG) officially inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at Kampar Campus on 3 August 2016.

Delegates from MCPG present at the ceremony were Standing Committee Member and Secretary of United Front Work Department of Meizhou City Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Zhang Lixia, Vice-Chairman of Meizhou City Returned Overseas Chinese Association Tang Zhiping, Director of Meizhou City Returned Overseas Chinese Association Qiu Kaixin, Office Director of United Front Work Department of CPC Meizhou Municipal Committee Ling Lili, and staff of Communication Exchange Center of United Front Work Department of CPC Meizhou Municipal Committee Liang Jiafeng.

The delegates were welcomed by UTAR Planning and Development Committee advisor Tan Sri Hew See Tong, accompanied by UTAR Education Foundation Board of Trustees Member Tan Sri Lee Oi Hian, UTAR Council Member Hew Fen Yee, Vice-President for Internationalisation and Academic Development Prof Ir Dr Ewe Hong Tat, Institute of Chinese Studies Dean Dr Chong Siou Wei, Institute of Management and Leadership Development Director Prof Cheng Ming Yu, and representatives from faculties, institutes, and administrative departments.

Prof Ewe delivering his welcome speech

Prof Ewe in his address expressed his warmest welcome to all delegates from MCPG with the Chinese idiom, “It is a great pleasure to have friends coming from afar (有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎).” He also said that he looked forward to more mutually beneficial cooperation and collaboration with MCPG in future, such as student scholarships and Hakka Cultural Studies. Henceforth, UTAR will annually offer five UTAR-Meizhou Student Scholarships for outstanding students in Meizhou City.

Introducing UTAR to the guests who are visiting for the first time, he said, “UTAR was established in 2002. Although still a young university, UTAR has achieved various commendable results such as being named one of the ‘top three Malaysian universities in terms of number of citations per paper’ in year 2015 by QS World University Rankings recently.” He added, “Our capable graduates are popular among the industries, such as well-known Chinese company Huawei, which has repeatedly come to UTAR for recruitment.”

Zhang expressing her delight in working together

Commenting on the bronze sculpture of Confucius and Einstein, Zhang said, “The sculpture symbolises the convergence of wisdom from both the East and the West and impressed me a lot. I believe the multiracial, multicultural, and multireligious environment in Malaysia and UTAR will provide our students with a good platform to learn cultural adaptation.” She also gave a brief introduction about Meizhou City’s history and culture during the meeting.

Dr Chong introducing the research conducted in Hakka Studies

Dr Chong, as a representative for ICS’s Hakka Studies, gave an introduction on the Hakka community in Malaysia and shared on the research findings throughout the years. “Hakka people form the second largest subgroup of the ethnic Chinese population in Malaysia and there is much worthwhile research we can conduct in Hakka Studies.” Besides that, he explained on the field studies conducted in collaboration with Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University recently and hoped for similar collaboration with Meizhou’s institutions in the future.   

With the MoU marking the beginning of much future collaboration, both parties welcomed every opportunity to cooperate with each other.

UTAR representatives together with the visitors from MCPG