Leaders from Department of Aid to Foreign Countries Visiting HRC

   ---On March 9, a group of officials from Chinese Ministry of Commerce headed by Ms. Sai Danxia, deputy Director General of Department of Aid to Foreign Countries, visited HRC (also called National Research Institute for Rural Electrification). At the meeting with HRC's chiefs and seniors, Dr. Chen Shengshui, Director of HRC, made a working report to introduce the basic conditions, the achievements related to the international SHP training and the benefits from the export of SHP technique and equipment promoted by SHP training workshops. He also proposed two requests: one is to hope that the training and foreign aid work of HRC would be continuously supported and instructed by the leaders from Department of Aid to Foreign Countries; the other is to hope that the staff of the Department could come and attend the opening or closing ceremony of training workshops, which is also the aspiration of foreign participants.

    Ms. Sai, the deputy Director General, replied that these two requests are just what they are planning to do. She introduced that on the conference to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UN, China's President Hu Jingtao announced China would offer training workshops for about 30,000 African participants in the upcoming three years. According to the instruction by the Central Committee of the Party, the Ministry of Commerce will strengthen the foreign aid training with the cost-effective feature. Presently, the Division of Human Resources Development, responsible for the training work, has been established in the Department to arrange more time for carrying on the on-the-spot investigation to the training organizations. Ms. Sai also pointed out that, training is a long-term work, which should be carried on for a long time. She highly appraised the achievements HRC had attained in the aspect of training for international participants and encouraged HRC to continue striving hard to make more contributions to the work of such training.

    Leaders of Ministry of Commerce visited HRC's training facilities, such as classrooms, dining room, hotel, internet room etc., showing obvious satisfaction to the hardware facilities and management capability. The Ministry of Water Resources has been paying much attention to the foreign-aid work of our center. From 2003 to 2004, more than 10 million Yuan was invested in renovating the training room, dining room and SHP laboratory for HRC; 38 standard rooms have been decorated, reaching three-star hotel standard, which creates the excellent condition for HRC to hold the training workshops.

    In recent over 20 years, HRC has hosted 41 SHP related international training workshops for nearly 740 officials and engineers from 80 countries. The main purposes of the international SHP technical training workshops are: to disseminate China'’s SHP experience, train SHP experts for the developing countries, help these countries to improve the capacity for constructing the SHP and promoting the SHP development; also to stimulate the export of Chinese SHP technique and equipment and help the domestic SHP enterprises go global through the exchange of SHP technique and experience. HRC itself has run a great deal of international SHP cooperative projects with good economic benefits. Up to now our center has already provided the consulting service for more than 20 countries and areas, and supplied SHP equipment for Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Nepal, Cuba, Guyana, etc. Since 1990, HRC has undertaken 23 SHP consultation and equipment supply projects, including 3 foreign-aid projects, which amounts to nearly 100 million Yuan contracted value. This year HRC will sign contracts with India, Turkey, Pakistan, Peru and Uzbekistan etc. for technical design and equipment supply, with the contract value of over 30 million Yuan. Our center will continue to unceasingly strengthen its capability, to further improve the training workshops and strive to make more contributions to our country's foreign-aid training work.(2006-03-14)