President of Finland Sauli Niinisto will make an official visit to China April 6-10 at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The visit will begin with Niinisto attending the high-level Boao Forum for Asia on Hainan. From Hainan, the president will travel to Beijing to meet with Xi and other Chinese political leaders. His entourage in Beijing will include Alexander Stubb, minister for European affairs and foreign trade, and a delegation of business leaders.

EU Ambassador to China Markus Ederer welcomed a group of 24 middle-school students from the European School (Brussels II) at the EU Delegation premises in Beijing on March 27, introducing EU-China relations and answering questions. The group is on a two-week trip to China, visiting Shanghai and Beijing, under an exchange program with a Shanghai middle school.They hope to experience real life in China and deepen their knowlegde of the country and its people.

David Beckham is the first foreign sporting figure to become an official ambassador for football in China, concluding his first visit to China last week in his new role as ambassador for youth football and the Chinese Super League at a reception hosted by the other British ambassador in China, Sebastian Wood. Also in attendance at the reception, the embassy reports, was film actress Li Bingbing and China's Minister of Culture Cai Wu. The event was the final act in a tour that took the former England international to Beijing, Qingdao and Wuhan.

The Danish embassy in China and Nanjing municipality recently signed a government memorandum of understanding to establish a Sino-Danish Eco-Park in Nanjing.

Friis Arne Petersen, the ambassador of Denmark, met with Yang Weize, Party secretary of Nanjing municipality, to discuss the importance of sustainable urbanization.

The idea behind the MoU is to turn the Nanjing pharmaceutical industry park into a green, energy-efficient industrial park based on Denmark's experience in industrial park planning, construction and management, as a showcase for future development projects in China.

The Polish embassy hosted a book launch for the Chinese edition of Captivated Mind, by 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Czeslaw Milosz, whose classic works were written in the early 1950s. Milosz captured the situation of the people of Poland and the three Baltic states before and after World War II, and his insights remain compelling today.

The Polish embassy and guests will be out in force for the Lutoslawski Quartet at the Forbidden City Concert Hall on Saturday night. Composer Witold Lutoslawski is well known to this crowd, of course. Dai Bo, a young pianist who specializes in Polish modern classical music, wowed a Chinese New Year's reception with an impromptu performance of the composer's Piano Etude No 1.

In the latest in a series of activities to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Elysee Treaty, German Ambassador Michael Schaefer and French Ambassador Sylvie Bermann recently met with about 100 students from various professional seminars. The diplomats discussed the friendship between Germany and France, Europe's past and future, as well as the European identity. Schaefer stressed that youth exchanges have played a very important role in the German-French relationship.

Send embassy news to michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/29/2013 page31)