China's signature high-end liquor maker Kweichow Moutai last month launched a $450,000 scholarship program at the University of New South Wales, the first international scholarship the company has ever set up in its history.
The Moutai scholarship will be used to support Chinese students studying for a master's degree in business administration at the Australian university, as part of the company's efforts to cultivate more high-quality business human resources for trade and economic exchanges between the two countries.
University President Ian Jacobs said China had many proverbs about education, such as "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".
Education is a lifetime gift given to individuals, he added. The university's business school aims to develop leaders with strategic thinking, forward-looking views and strong capabilities to change the world, and the Moutai scholarship would help to further achieve that goal, Jacobs said.
The Sydney-based university is a member of the prestigious Group of Eight - a coalition of Australia's leading research-intensive universities - with great influence and appeal across Southeast Asia, Europe, North America and other regions.
Its Australian Graduate School of Management MBA program is recognized as one of the finest in the world by the Financial Times 2017 ranking of the top 100 global MBA programs.
The university has educated many leading executives in Australia and the rest of the world.
In China, it has partnered with schools in Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an. "I am well aware that the University of New South Wales has made a significant contribution to the progress of human civilization and trained many talented people for China," said Zhang Deqin, deputy general manager of Kweichow Moutai.
Like the university, Zhang said: "Kweichow Moutai has a deep cultural and historical heritage.
"It has always been committed to supporting students and promoting educational development, with a large amount of funds invested annually by both the company and its branches to finance students from poor families."
The company's two existing scholarship schemes, launched in 2006 and 2012, have donated around $107 million in total and helped more than 100,000 students to finish their college education.
It also invested heavily to establish a Moutai institute in Southwest China's Guizhou province, where the company is located, to train professionals for the liquor industry. The establishment of the Moutai scholarship is expected to help the University of New South Wales to develop more high-quality human resources and promote cooperation and communications between the Moutai institute and the university, Zhang said.
(China Daily 06/14/2018 page10)
