BUDAPEST, June 20 (Xinhua) -- The Confucius Institute at Hungary's Eotvos Lorand University has greatly promoted educational and cultural exchanges between Hungary and China since its establishment in 2006, a Hungarian education official said Tuesday.

As the only Confucius Institute in Hungary, it has made the Chinese language and culture more popular by organizing language courses and cultural programs and publishing textbooks, Rozsa Hoffmann, the state secretary for education of the Ministry of Human Resources, said in an interview with Xinhua.

The Confucius Institute has played an important role in enhancing China-Hungary cooperation on education, culture and science, Hoffmann said.

Moreover, she welcomed the courses developed by the institute, "which have a positive effect on Hungarian students and on the cooperational educational institutes."

Hungary is paying great attention to Chinese language learning now, as the interest in Chinese has been growing in both public education and higher education, Hoffmann said.

At present, 363 students are studying Chinese in primary and secondary schools and 188 in universities, and a Ph.D. program at Eotvos Lorand University is a guarantee of quality, she said.

A network of Confucius Institutes linked to Hungarian universities is being established in Debrecen in eastern Hungary and Szeged in southeastern Hungary with assistance from Chinese universities in Chongqing and Shanghai. These institutes will offer courses in Mandarin as well as Chinese culture, Hoffmann said.

"Our efforts to teach the Chinese language are in line with the government's 'opening to East' policy, in which China is an important partner," she said.