A total of 33 managers, engineers, professors and government officials from 15 countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative started a three-week seminar on the Chinese textile industry in Shanghai on Wednesday.

The seminar is the second of its kind organized by Donghua University. The first seminar, held last year, had 20 attendees from eight countries. China is the largest textile exporter and Donghua is a famous university in textile education and research in China.

Liu Chunhong, vice president of Donghua, said the program was so popular that they received more than 60 applications for the limited places.

Over the next three weeks, the participants will listen to lectures delivered by university staff and industry experts and also visit enterprises to learn about the development of the textile industry in China, as well as its frontiers in the field, ranging from technology to modern fashion.

Victor Nyaga, a representative from the Office of the President of Kenya, said they were keen to learn from China about how to improve their textile industry.

“We have a background in the 1980s where we had a vibrant textile industry in Kenya, but in the mid-1990s our textile industry collapsed,” he said. “We want to build bridges to learn more from China about how to improve.”

Carine Husni, marketing manager of Heliozid Oce Emirates, UAE, said she was interested in learning more about fabrics and printing on fabrics, especially using new nanoand environmentally friendly technology.

Since the Belt and Road Initiative was raised in 2013, the university has been paying significant attention to advancing educational and technological cooperation with organizations on the route.

The first textile-featured Confucius Institute was established by Donghua in Kenya in 2015.

Following the success of this seminar, further seminars were held in Sudan and Uzbekistan for university students.