China announces $60bn financial support to Africa

Chinese President Xi Jinping (4th left), President Muhammadu Buhari (3rd right) with other African leaders at the opening ceremony of the forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing, China yesterday

President Xi Jinping on Monday announced that China will provide a total of $60 billion in financial support to Africa.

The Chinese leader made the announcement in a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), in Beijing, China.

The fund, he said, would be provided in the form of government assistance as well as investment and financing by financial institutions and companies.

President Xi listed the financing to include 15 billion U.S. dollars of grants, interest-free loans and concessional loans, and 20 billion U.S. dollars of credit lines,

Others are the setting up of a 10-billion-U.S. dollars special fund for development financing and a 5-billion-U.S. dollars special fund for financing imports from Africa.

Chinese companies are also encouraged to make at least 10 billion U.S. dollars of investment in Africa in the next three years.

China decided to provide the funding support at the 2015 FOCAC Johannesburg summit to ensure the successful implementation of ten China-Africa cooperation plans adopted at the summit.

With the announcement, President Jinping said China has honoured its 2015 financing pledge to Africa. The financing has been either delivered or arranged, he added.

China, he said, would also expand its imports especially non-resource products from Africa.

Since the Johannesburg summit, China has fully implemented the ten cooperation plans, with a large number of railway, highway, airport, port and other infrastructure projects as well as a number of economic and trade cooperation zones built or under construction, Xi said.

President Xi also announced that the China would implement eight major initiatives with African countries in the next three years and beyond, covering fields such as industrial promotion, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, and green development.

He also announced China’s supports on peace and security, capacity building, education, culture, health, poverty reduction, people’s welfare, and people-to-people exchanges.

China will carry out 50 agricultural assistance programs, provide emergency humanitarian food aid amounting to 1 billion yuan (147 million U.S. dollars) to African countries affected by natural disasters, and send 500 senior agricultural experts to Africa, he said.

He said his government would assist Chinese companies in taking part in Africa’s infrastructure development by way of investment-construction-operation.

China will set up 10 Luban Workshops in Africa to offer vocational training for young Africans. China will also train 1,000 high-caliber Africans, provide Africa with 50,000 government scholarships, sponsor seminar and workshop opportunities for 50,000 Africans, and invite 2,000 African youths to visit China for exchanges.

To deepen people-to-people exchanges, Xi said China will set up an institute of African studies and enhance exchanges with Africa on civilization.

China will set up a China-Africa peace and security fund and continue providing free military aid to the African Union.

A total of 50 security assistance programmes will be carried out in the fields including UN peacekeeping missions, fighting piracy, and combating terrorism, he added.