During July 17-19, the Office of Chinese Language Council International held the “2^nd joint conference for Iberoamerican Confucius College” in Ranua del mar, Chile. More than 100 people attended the joint conference, including Xu Lin, director of the office of Chinese Language Council International, Lu Fan, Chinese ambassador in Chile, Chinese cultural counselors and Chinese/foreign president of the Confucius Colleges in Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries, as well as leaders of relevant colleges and universities at home. Liang Qingyin, standing vice secretary of the party committee of SYSU, was also invited to attend the conference.

The conference carried out intensive and extensive discussions on the construction of textbook and course for the Confucius College, cultivation and training of localized teachers, cooperations and communications among colleges and universities, etc. It was agreed that the Confucius College is a good platform to spread Chinese language and culture. It has promoted the communications and understanding between Chinese people and people from Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries through years of concentrated efforts. It is expected that the headquarters of the Confucius College would give more support on the teaching of Chinese language and the development of Confucius colleges in this area, strengthen the force to develop the Chinese language textbook for Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries and enhance training of Chinese language teachers in the country where the Confucius college is located so as to bring out more outstanding Chinese language teaching talents for Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries.

On behalf of SYSU, Liang Qingyin, standing vice secretary of the party committee, indicated that SYSU would continue to support the construction of Confucius colleges co-built by SYSU and foreign agencies. In 2007, SYSU set up Confucius College jointly with Yucatan Autonomous University of Mexico, whose enrollment had reached 200 by 2009. And it has successfully held the 1^st and 2^nd HSK new Chinese proficiency test and the event “China Day” which aims to spread Chinese culture, in Merida. This Confucius College has been exerting a good influence in that area and playing a positive role in the popularization of the Chinese language course of the Confucius College.

According to another report, Doctor Wu xiaoyan from the School of Foreign Languages, as the Chinese president of the Confucius College of Yucatan Autonomous University, had also attended the conference.