On Nov 15, before he taught a class of civil servants from Africa, including Muorwel, how to paint pandas with traditional brushes and ink, Shao asked them if China is still a developing country. Many shook their heads.

In response, Shao explained about China's unbalanced development and that many people still live in poverty. "Setting foot in China can quickly clear up many misunderstandings," he said.

Andrej Bratkovic, who works in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Slovenia, said China's openness makes policy easy to formulate and he will pass on everything he has learned to his colleagues at home.

"I am sure that our different political systems won't be an obstacle to China and Slovenia tightening trade ties. China is so different to how I imagined. In the future, it will not be an unfamiliar place when I deal with related issues," he said.

In addition to understanding basics issues, such as China's political and social systems, the latest groups of trainees have learned about hot topics, including the Belt and Road Initiative and the new strategies outlined in the report Xi delivered at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in his capacity as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

"Learning from China's experiences will help us to push forward our own economic and social reform," said Zamira Marin Triana, Cuba's vice-minister of labor and social security, after taking part in a seminar about the report.

She was impressed mostly by the report's insistence that a government's focus should always be the fulfillment of the ever-growing needs of its people, which is also the goal of the Cuban government.

Luis Carlos Arce Cordova, supreme prosecutor with the National Electoral Tribunal of Peru, said China has provided the world with a different vision of development.

"High-quality reforms have helped China to achieve a high speed of development," he said, adding that a country's development policies need to be constantly adjusted to suit new situations and challenges that emerge, but the goal should always be to improve people's livelihoods, just as Xi said in the report.

He said Peru, which is also a developing country, can learn from China's development model: "We should not only introduce short-term stimulus policies but also implement supply-side reform to achieve long-term growth."

According to Dennis Alvarenga Sandoval, a professor at the National Autonomous University in Honduras, China has laid out a very impressive long-term development plan through to 2050.

"China now aims for sustainable and high-quality development so its people can live quality lives. Its development has attracted the world's attention and China has become a role model," he added.

Muorwel believes China's success will be an inspiration to many countries in Africa, including South Sudan.

"China has achieved so much in such a short time. If China can do it, we should be able to do it, too," he said.

Contact the writer at cuijia@chinadaily.com.cn