Held Conference "How Montenegro perceives the Belt and Road Initiative and 16 + 1 Co-operation".

The  Belt and Road 16 + 1 initiative is a mechanism that will bring mutual benefits to our academic, research and student community. This was stated by the Rector of the University of Montenegro prof. dr Danilo Nikolić at today's conference "How Montenegro perceives the Belt and Road Initiative and 16 + 1 Co-operation".

Since the founding of the Initiative, Nikolić added, the University of Montenegro was contacted and involved in the realization of ideas within it.

"One of them is a 16 + 1 Association of Tourism Colleges, an initiative that has joined the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality from Kotor. We hope this will boost the development of education and research in the field of tourism, with the aim of promoting education and common progress, "said Rector Nikolić.

He stressed that cooperation and exchange of knowledge is the main value in building the education community of the countries and the path of initiative.

Thanks to this initiative over the past years, Montenegro and China have implemented a series of joint projects of historic significance, according to the Chinese Ambassador to Montenegro Cui Zhiuwei. As some of them, he mentioned the project to build the Bar-Boljare motorway, as well as other forms of cooperation in the field of education, science and technology, traffic, logistics and infrastructure, trade and promotion of Montenegro as investment destinations, as well as no less important cooperation in the field of culture.

The cooperation of the two countries was further strengthened by the founding of the Confucius Institute at the University of Montenegro. Montenegrin Director of the Institute doc. dr Milena Đukanovic reminded of numerous activities.

"Last year, in cooperation with our most important partner - Embassy of China, 29 Montenegrin students received scholarships fees for basic, master and doctoral studies," said Djukanovic. She announced more intense activities of the Confucius Institute, which will contribute to the success of Belt and Road initiative.

The conference was organized by the Diplomatic Academy of the Montenegrin Ministry of Foreign Affairs in cooperation with the Confucius Institute at the University of Montenegro and the China Institute for Eastern Europe.

Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Montenegro Vatroslav Belan, Director of the Diplomatic Academy Satka Hajdarpašić, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Professor Cai Fang, and Professor Huang Pink, President of the China-Central Eastern Europe Institute, spoke at the conference.

Within three panel discussions, distinguished lecturers spoke about the topic of cooperation in the field of economy, infrastructure, environment protection, tourism and science.