Interest in Chinese increasing among businesspeople in Portugal

From here in Portuguese a week ago:

Interest in the Chinese language and culture is greatly increasing in Portugal, particularly among businesspeople, said the dean of the University of Lisbon (António Sampaio da Nóvoa) to the Lusa news agency.

"We are opening intensive courses for businesspeople [because] the demand is impressive." he said when asked about the activity of the Confucius Institute at the UL, established four years ago in partnership with the Tianjin Institute of Foreign Studies.

The Confucius Institute at the UL is the second of its kind in Portugal, after the one established at the University of Minho, in Braga.

About 300 students now attend the Confucius Institute at the UL.

António Sampaio da Nóvoa began on Wednesday a one-week visit to China, accompanied by officials from the UL and the Macau Polytechnic Institute.

The visit coincides with the rapid growth of Portuguese courses in the Chinese continent, a phenomenon associated with the development of economic and commercial relations between China and Portuguese-language countries, particularly Angola and Brazil.

Not counting Macau, a decade ago the who of China only had two universities with degrees in Portuguese; today there are five in Beijing alone.

I would add Portugal to Angola and Brazil now, considering the amount of Chinese investment pouring in at the moment. For example from here:

The acquisition of 21.5 percent of power company Energias de Portugal (EdP) by China Three Gorges (CTG), at the end of last year, was a special moment for business relations and may be followed by the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) taking a static in Portugal’s national power grid, Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN).

Also this and this article on more or less the same subject.