An agreement to establish a Confucius Institute in Barcelona was signed here on Monday, local media reported.

Chinese Ambassador Qiu Xiaoqi and representatives from Casa Asia, the University of Barcelona and the Autonomous University of Barcelona signed the agreement in Madrid's Confucius Institute.

It will be the fourth Confucius Institute in Spain and the 246th in a total of 72 countries around the world.

After the signing of the agreement, the Chinese Embassy and Casa Asia also held Spain's first conference on the Confucius Institute and Chinese teaching, which aims at summing up Spain's efforts in this field and discussing strategies and measures of development.

Over 80 representatives from the Spanish government, 30 universities and more than 10 language teaching institutes participated in the conference.

More than 40 universities in Spain offer Chinese language courses and over 1,000 Spaniards are learning the Chinese language.

(Xinhua News Agency June 3, 2008)