(Nine Dragons Restaurant,February 20th, 2018)

New Year starts everything anew. The Vilnius University Confucius Institute has entered its seventh year now. During these seven years, we witnessed the growth and development of the Confucius Institute and the excellent contribution it has made to promote the cultural exchanges between the two countries and to deepen the friendship between the two peoples. Confucius Institute has held many cultural exchange activities in many cities. The Confucius Classroom has been widely welcomed by the Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Engineering Lyceum. Confucius Institute has become a platform for expanding cooperation between the two countries. With the joint efforts of China and Lithuania, the Institute has greatly improved and enriched its classes and events, which have attracted more and more participants. It is now truly a bridge of communication and friendship between the two peoples.

These great achievements and progress are made out of the full support from Lithuanian government and its host university. May I extend my sincere thanks to Lithuanian your great support to the Confucius Institute. I would also like to thank all the teachers from both sides for their hard work, you are not only teaching Chinese language and culture to Lithuanians, but also introducing Lithuanian language and culture into China. Your great dedication and enthusiasm helps painting a colorful chapter of cultural exchanges between the two countries and peoples.

Ladies and gentlemen,

As we all know, culture is the basis of the relations between nations and the starting point for people-to-people exchanges. The splendid culture created by the peoples of all countries is a common treasure of mankind. As President Xi Jinping pointed out, "Civilizations are colorful due to exchanges and civilizations are enriched for mutual learning." Civilizations around the world have different characteristics and diversities. Each country's culture has different form of presentation. However, they all share the same mission of inheriting history and creating the future. The future of different nations has never been as closely inter-connected as we are today. It is inevitable that all nations should strengthen communication, learn from each other and work together to deal with challenges. This is exactly why China advocates to build the community of mankind with shared future. Lithuania has a long history, splendid culture and lots of precious cultural and ethnic heritage. While spreading Chinese culture, the Confucius Institute also need to learn from Lithuania's culture and introduce to the Chinese people the outstanding cultural traditions of Lithuania so as to make better contributions to promoting cultural exchanges and enhancing the understanding and friendship between the two peoples.

Finally, I wish that the Confucius Institute achieving new progress in the new year and the two countries harvesting more fruitful results in cultural exchanges .

Thank you.