On Sep.13, 2022, the opening ceremony for fashion design programme between Fuzhou University of International Studies and Trade (FUIST) and Siracusa Academy of Fine Arts and Design (SAFAD) was successfully held online. Xu Ming, president of FUIST, Elisabetta Galasso, president and Alessandro Montel, Dean of SAFAD, and representatives and colleagues from both side participated in the meeting.

The opening ceremony kicked off with promotional videos in which dean of the programme sent her best wishes to students from FUIST. Following it, faculty representative and student representative delivered welcome speeches respectively. Alessando Montel then, on behalf of SAFAD, made a brief speech in which he expressed his expectations for the programme, calling it the first step to long cooperation. He described this ceremony as a new journey under challenges and wished a better future for this programme with efforts from both sides. President Xu Ming concluded this cooperation as further efforts for the opening up exchange for students and teachers on the history of FUIST, which started from 2004. President Xu also emphasized that the future goal of FUIST is to further design its international blueprint and to overcome challenges ahead for teaching quality improvement, and believed that, through deeper communication the cooperation would reach a higher level. After teachers, students and officials took group photos with Italian managers warmly, the ceremony ended.

This cooperation with SAFAD in the Fashion Design Programmemarks another important step of FUIST seeking for more opportunities to its students by promoting cooperations with overseas universities.