French business school sets up creative village

Duan Xueqiong and Qian Tong

Foreign students can often be seen these days at the Anting Shanghai Auto Exhibition Center.

They are students of a newly opened campus of French Business School, one of the largest business colleges in France. Nearly 140 overseas students have been enrolled this semester starting September 1.

In the morning, they have a Chinese language class and in the afternoon another class to learn about the auto industry in Jiading. They also learn the local lifestyle so that they can better understand Chinese people.

This campus, or the Sino-France Automobile Creative Village, was jointly set by FBS, China Auto Talents Society and Shanghai International Automobile City Group.

FBS, with four colleges, has nine campuses in France with more than 10,000 students.

Since signing the agreement with Jiading last September, the FBS Anting project has won wide support from relevant prefectures and enterprises in France.

“Jiading is also committed to support the construction of FBS Anting campus and has provided many privilege policies — including a two-year rent-free for the FBS Anting campus,” said Zhang Junsong, senior manager of the project.

“Currently we are working to bring high-end professionals from France to get in touch with Jiading enterprises so as to bring advanced management concept to Jiading. We also plan to set up a Sino-France International Exchange Center to make it a platform for talents in auto industries,” Zhang added.

Apart from the auto industry, FBS will expand the cooperation with Jiading to the digital management of urban and rural areas, tourism and the culture industry, including enterprise incubator projects, Sino-France-Africa overseas study projects, adult education and vocational training.