Meanwhile, China and Africa should focus on practical cooperation oriented to capacity-building, said Xi, who pledged that China is willing to share its advanced and applicable technologies with Africa without reservation and deepen bilateral industrial cooperation so as to improve the quality of Africa’s workforce, increase employment and lift the continent’s endogenous growth impetus.
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President Xi Jinping has announced that China will help develop Africa by extending $60 billion in the form of grants, loans and development funds, as well as scholarships and training for thousands of Africans in three years.
10 major cooperation plans provide a long list of China-Africa pragmatic cooperation that reflects Chinese people’s practicability and sincerity to their African bothers and sisters.
Security now occupies a prominent place, along with business and culture, on the agenda of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac).
Analysts say that resource-rich Africa has become yet another battleground for influence between Washington and Beijing, following the establishment of the U.S. Africa Command.
China is Africa’s largest trading partner and the trade volume between them amounted to $220 billion in 2014, according to China state news agency Xinhua.
Mr Mugabe, whose government signed 10 economic accords with China this week, including on expanding Zimbabwe’s largest thermal power plant, praised Beijing’s role in Africa, contrasting it favourably with that of Western nations.
As the most industrialised country in Africa, South Africa stood most to gain from China’s moves towards greater investment in Africa and especially in adding value to raw materials.
But China too has irked some Africans in the past for using Chinese firms and labour to build state-funded roads and railways in Africa while buying up commodities and leaving little for local economies, an image Xi is keen to change during the conference that ends today.
President Zuma said the African countries have been struggling with unemployment among the youth and that there is so much pressure for the African leaders to come up with economic and development plans and create jobs.
China is willing to help the West African country once beset with an Ebola outbreak strengthen public health systems, Xi said during a meeting with Guinean President Alpha Conde.
“China supports the resolution of African issues by Africans in the African way”, He continued.
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Themed “Africa-China Progressing Together: Win-Win Cooperation for Common Development”, the summit is the second of its kind under the 15-year-old framework of the FOCAC, which groups China, 50 African countries that have established diplomatic ties with China, and the Commission of the African Union.
