The celebrations took place on Sunday 2nd February 2014 at Highdown School and included a traditional Lion dance and other performances by students.
The Reading Chinese School was established in 1978 and now has over 200 students. The school offers Cantonese and Mandarin lessons at every level from Reception year, through to GCSE, GCE AS Level and adult classes. The school also offers Chinese painting classes.
Alok Sharma said: "It was an absolute pleasure to be invited to attend the Chinese New Year celebrations. The Reading Chinese School do a brilliant job providing Mandarin and Cantonese lessons and it was great to see how many students, including adult learners, there were from different backgrounds taking an interest in learning a new language."
Alok continued: "The huge investment the Chinese company Huawei are making locally in Reading provides an indication of the benefits that can be made from engaging with China, which within just a few years is projected to become the largest economy in the world. China will be an increasingly important partner for Britain in business and inward investment and, in addition to encouraging local initiatives to teach Chinese languages, the government should be looking to proactively encourage the teaching in all schools of Mandarin and other native languages used in the growth economies which will ultimately benefit the British economy."