Hindi is the ticket to success for Chinese students

AHMEDABAD: On the sprawling EDI campus, a group of Chinese students peer into their textbooks. A teacher writes out sentences on the blackboard. But this classroom has an interesting feature. The teacher is not giving lessons on entrepreneurship but on the nuances of Devanagari script.

With bilateral trade between India and China reaching around $70 billion in the last fiscal, interest in Hindi language has surged in the dragon land.

Bao Ya Ping, 21, from China's transportation hub Kunming in Yunnan province is part of a 13 member batch currently pursuing a nine-month international certificate course on advanced business Hindi at Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI).

She says, "With the two Asian giants working to bolster bilateral ties, new opportunities have opened up for us in India. Thus, fluency in Hindi has become the determining factor for grabbing a good job."

Another student Wu Ze Peng echoes her views. "Several factors have fuelled the surge to learn Hindi in China. One of them is definitely the exciting new opportunities that have opened up for business and travel," he says.

Peng says, "Though one has to interact in English in most companies, learning Hindi helps us understand the real India and adapt to the local culture with ease." EDI faculty Avdhesh Jha said: "The course will impart sound conceptual foundation and abilities in business Hindi to students so that they emerge as credible communicators with skills to articulate their points."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently visited China and investments worth Rs $1 billion in India were discussed. Gujarat chief minister, who was also part of the delegation, had inked 22 MoUs worth Rs 30,000 crore with Chinese companies and institutions for investments in the state alone.