China's investment into Africa should promote value addition for job creation and sustainable economic cooperation between the two sides, the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce said on Monday.

The organization's Vice President David Norupiri told Xinhua in an interview that Africa was hungry for investment in projects that promote value addition to its vast natural resources in order to accelerate development on the continent.

"We are looking for more of those investments where we add value to our minerals and agricultural products because there will be job creation within Africa," he said.

He said his organization appreciated China's economic assistance to Zimbabwe and Africa, but said the focus of that cooperation should now be placed on helping Africa to build capacity to process its natural resources for both domestic and export markets.

He said a positive aspect about China's cooperation with Africa was that it promoted a win-win situation and had no strings attached as compared to development assistance from the West.

Zimbabwe's economic cooperation with the West has been curtailed by sanctions that were imposed on the country by the European Union in 2002.

"The Chinese don't mix business with politics. They look at business as business and we need investors who work along this line," Norupiri said.

China has, since 2000, been cooperating with Africa under the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, a platform for collective dialogue and effective mechanism to enhance practical cooperation between the two sides.

Norupiri said China can continue to engage bilaterally with individual African countries while also pursuing regional economic cooperation with Africa in order to deepen regional integration in Africa and enhance the continent's trade and investment status in the world.

(Xinhua News Agency June 19, 2012)