An-Najah Signs an MOU with Southeast University China
Professor Maher Natsheh, Acting President of An-Najah National University has recently signed an MOU with Prof. Zhang Guangjun, President of Southeast University China (SEU).
The agreement aimed at reinforcing academic cooperation in terms of joint research, visit exchange and student scholarships.
As part of this agreement, the two universities have received funding from the Chinese Government to carry out a joint research project on planning industrial zones in Palestine which will be implemented over the next three years. The project will be carried out through the Urban Planning Department in both universities in cooperation with relevant official bodies in Palestine such as the Palestinian Industrial Estate and Free Zones Authority. The project is part of the One Belt One Road Initiative (OBOR)* launched by the Chinese Government in 2015 as well as the Silk Road Fund.
In order to make the arrangements for the joint cooperation project, Dr. Ali Abdul Hameed, the project coordinator from An-Najah party, Head of the MSc Natural Sciences Department and faculty member at the Urban Planning Engineering Department of An-Najah visited the Southeast University in Nanjing.
An-Najah delegation participated in the official meeting to announce the start of the joint cooperation project between the two universities in the presence of the President of SEU, the Dean of the Architecture School of SEU, representatives from the Urban Planning Society of China and the One Belt One Road Initiative and Prof. Wang Xingping, coordinator of the joint cooperation project from SEU as well as a delegation from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, which is a party of the cooperation project.
Dr. Abdul Hamid also participated in the 9th Annual Meeting of the Academic Committee for Urban Planning, which was held at SEU and attended by experts and academics from different international universities.
In the meeting, Dr. Abdul Hameed presented a research paper on planning and architectural development in Palestine. He also gave a lecture for architecture and planning professors and students at SEU on the practices of urban planning in Palestine and the role of An-Najah in promoting these practices.
Field trips to a number of industrial cities in China were also organized to learn about the Chinese experience regarding planning and the establishing of industrial cities with high technical and environmental standards in the fields of agriculture, information technology, medicine and nanotechnology.
Notes:
*OBOR is a development strategy proposed by China's president Xi Jinping that focuses on connectivity and cooperation between Eurasian countries, primarily the People's Republic of China (PRC), the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the oceangoing Maritime Silk Road (MSR). The strategy underlines China's push to take a larger role in global affairs with a China-centered trading network.
