Participants to the 2023 Seminar on Road and Bridge Construction and Maintenance for South Sudan posed for a photo during the send-off ceremony in Juba on March, 26 2023. Photo: Charles Wote/Eye Radio

China has invited 25 South Sudanese engineers to attend a Seminar on Road and Bridge Construction and Maintenance in Beijing.

The participants, who left Juba on Monday include four female and 21 male engineers from the National Ministry of Roads and Bridges, States, and the University of Juba.

The 21-day seminar hosted by Beijing Jiaotong University with site visits to Shanghai and Xi’an – shall cover the origin and development of Chinese Bridges, road landscape designs, road and bridge engineering construction materials, and highway engineering surveys.

Other focus areas include road base engineering, highway Pavement engineering, tunnel mechanics and engineering, bridge construction technology, intelligent road engineering, and maintenance among others.

MA Qiang, the Chinese Ambassador to South Sudan said the trip is part of the eighth ministerial conference forum on China-Africa Cooperation” held in Dakar, Senegal in 2021.

“Today we are gathering here in the Chinese Embassy to see off the participants who will go to China for the Seminar on Road and Bridge Construction and Maintenance for South Sudan,” Qiang said at the send-off ceremony in Juba this afternoon.

“This is an important moment, which shows the friendly relationship between China and South Sudan. After you come back from China, we believe that you will actively translate what you have learned during the seminar into the social and economic development in South Sudan and use your knowledge and sweat to build your country toward a better future.”

For his part, the Minister of Transport Madut Biar welcomed the offer to South Sudan, saying he hopes the participants will come back with new skills to improve the country’s road network.

“This is actually a positive work done between the government of South Sudan particularly the Ministry of Roads and Bridges and the Embassy of China,” Mr. Biar said while speaking on behalf of the Minister of Roads and Bridges.

“When they come back after 21 days, they are going to come up with a different skill that will help, will add up to their skills, and then will help the country in the construction of the bridges and maintenance of the roads.”

Meanwhile, some of the invited participants expressed their optimism about the trip.

They spoke to Eye Radio before their departure to China this afternoon.

“Now in this rainy season, there is no road, even though there are a lot of valleys and streams that cover all areas so no connection between the areas around Pibor, so people are suffering,” said one participants.

“Now am going for this seminar, to come back with knowledge and deliver this knowledge to the people of the Pibor administrative area,” he added.

“This trip to China is basically to get knowledge because it’s a seminar on roads and bridges so we believe we will acquire something from there and bring it home.”

“Our going will help the country because they are going to train us on the construction and maintenance it will improve on what we don’t have here.”