ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) — China will continue to supporting human resource development endeavors of Ethiopia and Africa, said a Chinese envoy.

La Yifan, Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia, made the remarks early this week during an awarding ceremony for the 2016/17 Chinese Government Scholarship to Ethiopian Students at the Chinese embassy in Addis Ababa.

26 Ethiopian students have been awarded the Chinese government scholarship to pursue their higher-level studies of masters and PhD programs at different universities in China.

“Human resource development is one of the pillars of our cooperation with African countries, and also with Ethiopia,” noted the ambassador.

“The scholarship to enable young, bright, ambitious Ethiopian youth to pursue your studies of high learning in top universities in China, in various fields from medical science, language, engineering…that are highly needed by Ethiopia in your current pursuit of industrialization,” he said.

Speaking during the ceremony, Zerihun Kebede, Representative of the Ethiopian Ministry of Education, has commended China for its continued support to Ethiopia’s efforts in capacity building programs by providing short and long-term training.

Stating that Ethiopia and China have a very long-standing relations for several years, the official said the relation between the two countries is being manifested in different forms of cooperation and support.

“This relation has gained momentum since recent years as the two sisterly countries have established a broader scope of bilateral relation and cooperation, especially in the field of education,” said Kebede.

“The training opportunities that we have been getting from China every year has immense contribution to our capacity building program,” he added.

Robel Gebre-Michael, one of the scholarship winners who will be pursuing his studies of master’s degree in information and communication engineering at Harbin Engineering University, told Xinhua that he is very happy about being one of the lucky Ethiopian students traveling to China for postgraduate studies.

He said they would be ambassadors of his country to promote Ethiopian culture to the Chinese, and the people-to-people relations and friendship of the two countries.