The Russian school will be located in Helongjiang University in this capital of northeast China's Helongjiang Province, and the Chinese school will be in a university in Vladivostok in the far east region of Russia.

This is the third pair of language training schools established in the two countries. The first two pairs are in Beijing, Shanghai in China and Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia, respectively.

The schools offer training and testing, and will have the authority to issue certificates of proficiency from each native country.

At the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the country was on very good terms with the former Soviet Union, and education of the Russian language was popular in middle schools and universities -- more so than English language education.

With China's ongoing opening-up drive, more young people are choosing English or Japanese as their first foreign language, while Russian has been somewhat overlooked.

As two countries strengthened mutual political and economic relations in the past decade, the demand for Russian-speaking workers in China has increased.

About 50 Chinese universities now offer Russian courses.

( People's Daily 10/03/2001)