Australia China Alumni Association Gets Exclusive Australian Pavilion Tour

Shanghai, China: The Australian pavilion today played to host to a delegation of over 85 Australian university graduates from the Australia China Alumni Association (ACAA). The delegation was taken on an exclusive tour of the soon to be completed pavilion with Pavilion Director, Peter Sams.

Commissioner-General for Australia, Lyndall Sachs said, "Australia has some of the finest centres of educational excellence in the world. Members of the ACAA are a true testament to this and we were very pleased to welcome them to our pavilion."

Henry Kong who completed a Masters of International Business and Law at the University of Sydney said, "Spending time studying in Australia has been one of the great highlights in my life and I feel privileged to have been given a sneak preview of what Australia has in store for China and the rest of the world at Shanghai World Expo".

The Australian pavilion will be profiling the education sector heavily through its targeted business program. In May alone, the pavilion will be holding an event celebrating the finalists of the second Australia-China Alumni Association Awards and a high-level forum involving key leaders in education fields to discuss emerging issues in higher education.

Ms Sachs said, "We are also very pleased to have two of Australia's best universities on board as sponsors of our pavilion, namely The University of Sydney as a gold sponsor and The Australian National University as a bronze sponsor.

In 2009 students from over 190 countries came to study at Australia's internationally renowned educational institutions. China contributed 154,000 enrolments to the 224,000 recorded for the whole North-East Asian region in 2009. Enrolments from Chinese students grew by 18 per cent between 2008 and 2009.

The Australia China Alumni Association (ACAA) is an organisation comprising China-based alumni of Australian universities. The ACAA serves as a high-profile umbrella alumni organisation with the aims of promoting the Australian education sector by profiling the success of alumni, and supporting alumni in China through business and social networking.

For further information, images and footage please contact:

Josh Levin
Communications Director (Australia)
Tel +61 (0) 412 533 382

Janet Tsai
Communications Director (China)
Tel +86 138 1898 6516