BEIJING, September 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian parliament upper house Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko was awarded with the title of professor emeritus of the Peking University.

The solemn awarding ceremony was held at the university on Tuesday.

Peking University President Wang Enge presented a certificate for the high title to the Federation Council speaker. He offered students to give applauses as a sign of respect to the Russian upper house speaker.

For her part, Matvienko thanked sincerely the university’s leadership for this decision. “This is a great honor for me and this title is much obliging for me. No matter where I worked I always paid special attention to development of Russian-Chinese relations. Such a high title compels me to take more effort to develop the whole scope of Russian-Chinese relations and certainly broaden education co-operation,” she said.

The parliamentary speaker noted successful development of cooperation between the Peking University and the Moscow State University pledging all-around assistance in expanding this co-operation.

“To be professor emeritus of such a glorious university, which is famous not only in China, but also in the whole world and which is in the elite group of universities is a great honor for me personally,” Matvienko added.