The Chinese president started his Africa tour in Zimbabwe on Tuesday where he witnessed the signing of 10 business agreements, including Beijing providing $1 billion for the country’s largest thermal power plant.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping who was in the country on a two-day State visit left for South Africa this morning where he is scheduled to attend the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
On December 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Harare for a state visit to Zimbabwe at the invitation of President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe said he would discuss with Xi various cooperation projects aimed at accelerating his country’s socio-economic development.
As a sign of the strengthening of ties between China and Zimbabwe, Mugabe – one of Africa’s longest-serving authoritarian rulers with a poor track record on human rights – was conferred China’s Confucius Peace Prize in October. He said the relationship between the two countries was not premised on the fact that China was a rich country, but that the Chinese were people of action.
Xi is on a five-day African visit that includes the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation with leaders from across the continent in Johannesburg on Friday and Saturday.
But China’s direct investment in Africa has fallen roughly 40 per cent in the first half of 2015 to $US1.19 billion, China’s commerce ministry said on November 17.
It also said that another agreement was signed to fund infrastructure and industrial development projects in South Africa and Africa. “I hope the media of both sides can use the opportunity of this summit to have more broadened and in-depth cooperation to promote the friendship of China and Africa”. “What we are asking for is development and socioeconomic upliftment”, he said.
They made the appeal on Tuesday at the China-Africa Media Summit in Cape Town, South Africa.
This historic meeting of the world’s leading economy and Africa is expected to elevate China-Africa relations to a new level.
“Key themes for Africa will be Africa’s growing debt to China (and) how China’s domestic stimulus can re-ignite commodity demand to help pay off the loans and industrialisation of the continent”, said Martyn Davies, Managing Director for Emerging Markets & Africa at Deloitte.
“Chinese investors are becoming quite strong in terms of their investments in Zimbabwe”.
South Africa, Zuma said, encourages people-to-people exchanges, and will strengthen coordination and cooperation with China within the multilateral mechanisms like the United Nations and Group of Twenty (G20), and on major global issues like climate change.
NPR worldwide correspondent Eleanor Beardsley joins Here & Now’s Indira Lakshmanan to talk about what world leaders need to accomplish by the end of this summit.
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Huang Ping, Chinese Ambassador to Harare, said China pumped in more than 0 million into the country in 2013, making it the biggest foreign investor in the nation, so far.
