China offers training, educational opportunities to Africa

President Xi Jinping said the package would include zero-interest loans as well as scholarships and training for thousands of Africans.

The summit comes on the 15th anniversary of the FOCAC, adhering to the theme “Africa-China Progressing Together: Win-Win Cooperation for Common Development”.

Xi – accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan – landed in South Africa after a brief visit to Zimbabwe, where Chinese projects have helped prop up an economy plunged into crisis under President Robert Mugabe’s rule.

PRESIDENT Lungu is expected here today for the Johannesburg summit of the 6th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

Chinese President Xi Jinping is now in South Africa to participate in the Sixth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which is being held December 4 and 5.

 China has also stuck to its tradition of non-intervention in local politics, a move often criticised by the West as turning a blind eye to human rights violations but welcomed by its African partners such as Zimbabwe.

The director of the China Africa Research Initiative at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington D.C. said “it is one of the areas where we just don’t have very good information”.

A fall in mineral prices has hit African countries who relied on Chinese demand, with large lay-offs by mining companies in resource-rich countries such as Zambia and South Africa.

The executive secretary the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Africa, Carlos Lopes, surprised delegates attending the African Media Leaders summit in Johannesburg recently when he said: “Africa’s proportion of total Chinese foreign direct investment stock is less than 1%”.

Zhong Jinahua, a Chinese diplomat at the summit, brushed off concerns about the recent drop in investment into Africa.

President Jacob Zuma and President Xi expressed desire to deepen the ties between South Africa and China.

The money will be used for Africa’s industrialization, agricultural programs, development of small and medium enterprises, poverty alleviation programs, education and health, among others.

Despite its enormous financial stakes, China appears interested in taking a different economic tack than the United States or Europe in how it chooses to invest in and build an economic relationship with Africa. Here is a man. He is doing to us what we expected those who colonized us yesterday to do.

Gideon Chitanga, Researcher at the Centre for Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg told Xinhua that the speech provided answers to most of Africa’s expectations from China.

5/12/2015

Source: Press Chronicle