This year's celebrations included lectures on Chinese culture, film screenings, panel discussions on education and art exhibitions.

At the opening ceremony on Friday, Liu Zhenmin, UN under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs said that as one of the six official languages of the UN, the importance of Chinese is rising with China's economic growth and increasing involvement in global affairs.

Wu Haitao, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, said nowadays, more and more diplomats and UN staff are learning Chinese and familiarizing themselves with the Chinese culture.