Zuma said, “Media cooperation between China and Africa captures our strong people-to-people cooperation, which can be enhanced by the increased role of the media”.
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Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the visit to Harare by the Chinese leader shows the country’s growing trade and economic ties with Zimbabwe, whereas previously ties between the two countries mainly centred on diplomatic and political issues.
Mugabe said he would discuss with Xi various cooperation projects aimed at accelerating his country’s socio-economic development.
Chinese nationals, Zimbabwean schoolchildren and people wearing shirts of Mr Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party held Zimbabwe and Chinese flags for up to six miles along the road to Harare International Airport. The two countries also signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation. A slew of deals for power plants, infrastructure and agriculture projects are expected to be announced during Xi’s visit to the continent, which houses some of the most impoverished nations in the world. 2015. Jinping is in Zimbabwe for a two day State visit during…
China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan, gave goods worth about US$150,000 to Grace Mugabe’s orphanage which is on her luxurious estate in the Mazowe area about 30 km west of Harare.
He said that the only thing the Chinese brought into their country was ‘unfavorable working conditions.
Although there were no figures announced for Tuesday’s deals, China and Zimbabwe have signed investment agreements for fibre internet roll-out, power generation and construction of a pharmaceuticals warehouse as well as the building of a new parliament building.
A senior diplomat told the newspaper: “Zimbabwe is turning into a factor of regional instability, which will affect investment to all of its neighbours”. Zimbabwe’s economy is struggling to emerge from a recession between 1999-2008, which saw gross domestic product shrink by 45 percent.
Xi headed to Johannesburg, South Africa, on Wednesday (2 December) to co-chair the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation summit.
“It’s not going to change our economic fortunes in the short-term”, Antony Hawkins, an economist at the University of Zimbabwe’s School of Business, told AFP. “We have had a lot of Chinese involvement before, but little improvement has happened”.
Mugabe, who has often been accused of repression and human rights abuses, was in October awarded the Confucius Peace Prize, a would-be Chinese rival to the Nobel Prize.
The moves are part of broader policy shift, as Xi works to build geopolitical influence for the world’s second-largest economy without abandoning a decades-old vow against interfering in other countries.
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President Jacob Zuma is focusing on the bottom line, after meeting with China’s leader.
