Number of Chinese Students studying in Spain reaches all time high

More Chinese students than ever before are being attracted by opportunities to study in Spain. Earlier this week Wang Zhiwei, who works at the Chinese Embassy in Madrid spoke at a cultural exchange event in Ávila and revealed that since 2003, the number of Chinese students in Spain has risen from 500 to 5500 in 2011. That’s an increase of over 1000% in just eight years. Impressive.

So what’s the reason for this sudden explosion in numbers? Chinese and Spanish are undeniably two of the most important languages in the world right now and along with English are set to dominate the business world for the foreseeable future. Chinese students are therefore driven to come to Spain and study Spanish in order to increase their employment prospects as anyone fluent in both languages would be indispensable for a number of businesses.

In addition, 2007 saw a number of agreements signed between the governments of China and Spain. This resulted in the creation of forums that have in turn set up partnerships between over 100 universities from both countries. A highly successful student exchange programme has flourished from this point across a wide range of subjects from architecture to tourism. The latter is an area constantly growing in importance as last year over 100,000 Chinese tourists visited Spain. This figure is set to rise by 25% each year, showing the increasing interest in Spanish culture across China.

Nevertheless, it is not just a case of one-way traffic between the two countries, with the number of Spanish students studying in China rising from just 100 in 2003 to 2000 this year. With the Chinese economy and many Latin American economies booming at a time when others stagnate, the bonds between Chinese and Spanish speakers around the world are only set to get even stronger.