With them is Zuma.
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“China has become Africa’s largest trade partner, and Africa is now one of China’s major import sources and fourth largest investment destination”.
The $60 billion pledge is three times as much as the package promised at the last China Africa cooperation summit in 2012, said economist Aubrey Hruby.
He said that China was keen to work with Nigeria for the mutual benefit of both countries.
For more on this, CRI’s Bob Jones spoke a little earlier to Ambassador Zhong Jianhua, China’s Special Representative on African Affairs, who’s in Johannesburg.
“(The) slide in trade between China and Africa is not due to falling demand but falling resource prices.
“China is still very active in Africa”, Deborah Brautigan, of the US-based China Africa Research Institute, told AFP.
Others are financial services, green development, poverty reduction and people-to-people cooperation.
President Zuma said that China and the African continent each made up a third of the world’s population, bringing the possibility of new markets and production possibilities.
Speaking at the Forum on China Africa Cooperation in South Africa, Xi outlined 10 areas that will receive funding including infrastructure projects, aid for drought-stricken countries and thousands of scholarships for African students.
Reuters reported that Western diplomat spoke of his skepticism regarding the deal; “it is hard to tell what the deals involve beyond the headlines. Most of it is loans but it’s not clear if these are old or new deals”.
Xi emphasized that some of the main aims of the $60 billion plan is to help accelerate African industrialization, modernize agriculture and enable African countries to gain independent and sustainable development.
President Buhari arrived in Johannesburg on Thursday.
Xi stays in South Africa on December 2-5 for the Johannesburg summit of the FOCAC and for his second state visit to the country.
Mugabe, who addressed the summit’s opening session as chair of African Union, lavished praise on the Chinese leader.
“In addition, the Government of the People’s Republic of China has awarded the Government of Zimbabwe a grant in the amount of US$62 485 356 for the construction of the Parliament Building, the NatPharm warehouse and other projects”, said Cde Chinamasa.
Jinping, who said that China would continue to be in the forefront in the development of the continent, described relations with Africa as a “shared destiny and common interest”.
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“Here is a man representing our continent; what he is doing for us is what the people that colonized us yesterday should have done”.
