Beijing was the best place to find African leaders in early November. Nearly 50 top officials from the continent assembled for the Beijing Summit and Third Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which promoted Sino-African relations.
During the two-day summit on November 4-5, highlighting "friendship, peace, cooperation and development," most African leaders expressed their wishes to achieve more pragmatic results through Sino-African cooperation.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said she hopes her country can obtain technology from the Chinese and make bamboo furniture for export. Gabon's President Omar Bongo said he hopes more Chinese investors will create job opportunities in his country. And after China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Co. introduced its plan to cooperate with African countries on infrastructure construction, Guinea-Bissau's President Joao Bernardo Vieira immediately asked for detailed plans.
"A total of 48 African delegations came to the summit and ministerial conference from distant places, which indicates not only their deep friendship with China, but also the urgent needs of deepening cooperation on both sides," said Qu Fujun, former Chinese Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo. He added that both sides hope to fully utilize FOCAC, an effective dialogue platform and cooperative mechanism, to further promote Sino-African ties.
"The greatest political achievement of the Beijing summit of FOCAC is boosting the relationship between China and Africa to a new type of strategic partnership," he said.
A new start
Establishing and developing a Sino-African strategic partnership was the core of the summit. Chinese President Hu Jintao described the partnership as deepening political relations, broadening economic cooperation, expanding cultural exchanges, promoting balanced and harmonious global development and strengthening cooperation and mutual support in international affairs.
At the same time, at the opening ceremony, he also put forward eight specific measures the Chinese Government will take to develop the strategic partnership, including financial aid, preferential loans, setting up a China-Africa development fund, debt cancellation, duty exemption and personnel training.
In order to implement these measures, the Beijing summit approved an action plan for 2007-09. Notably, China committed itself to doubling its 2006 assistance to Africa by 2009 and trying to increase the bilateral trade volume to $100 billion by 2010.
The summit issued the Declaration of the Beijing Summit of FOCAC, setting out the establishment of the strategic partnership in the form of a political document. Thus, a roadmap for the partnership emerged.
"China-Africa cooperation brings real benefits to the two peoples, and enjoys bright prospects," said Hu in summarizing the two-session roundtable of Chinese and African leaders.
"It is very interesting to hear how greatly China can help Africa. We think that it is a totally new opportunity, especially for the private sector, to which I belong," Luwis K. Tiengoue, Director of International Projects at Group Eoulee in Cote d'Ivoire told Beijing Review. His company has several partners in China, including Tianjin Machinery Import and Export Corp., whose annual trade exceeds $100 million. He noted that his main task in Beijing is to find new partners in other parts of China and noted that he had contacted some Chinese enterprises.
"China is the best market we can have in the world," he said.
Generating excitement
Liang Yan is the manager of the Beijing office of Afriland First Bank in Cameroon. After the opening ceremony, she immediately phoned the bank's General Manager, Alamine Ousmane, describing in detail the eight measures Hu had put forward.
"You know, it was noon Beijing time when the ceremony ended. But in Cameroon, it was about 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. After the general manager was woken up by my call and informed of the eight measures, he was so excited that he decided to gather all the top officials of the bank immediately to study China's new policy toward Africa," she said.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed the Chinese Government's announ-cement that it would double its aid to Africa by 2009. "This summit is an historic opportunity for China and Africa to build on these shared ideals, and to advance South-South cooperation," he said in a statement released by his spokesman.
"Viewing President Hu's speech, especially the measures to train African professionals, send agricultural experts to Africa and increase the number of Chinese Government scholarships to African students, we can see that China is changing its mode of aid to Africa from material aid to supplying the foundation for them to develop independently. This can promote the sustainable development of African countries," said Shen Jiru, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Trade and investment were new highlights of the summit. After two days of dialogue among more than 1,500 entrepreneurs from both sides, a total of 14 cooperative agreements were signed with a contractual value reaching $1.9 billion. Meanwhile, the China-Africa Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry was established on November 5.
According to a recent report from the World Bank, China's investment in Africa is exerting a positive influence on the continent's economic growth and that influence will continue to increase in the future.
"The forum supplies an excellent platform to bring entrepreneurs from China and Africa together and can give us access to the great market in Africa," said Fu Dongxing, Manager of the Africa Sector of the Overseas Market Department of Zhenzhou Yutong Group, one of China's vehicle makers.
At the Second Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs held on November 5, Fu was one of the busiest persons there. Within an hour he had spoken to nearly 10 African enterprises from Togo, Namibia, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Egypt, discussing opening vehicle factories in Africa.
"We have done business in Egypt for two years and our next step is to set up assembly plants in Africa," he said. "It is really outside of my expectation that so many African enterprises have shown an interest in cooperating with us." Yutong recently established a facility in Egypt to increase its after-sales service in Africa.
Boost in trade
Trade between China and Africa continues to increase dramatically. Currently, China is Africa's third-largest trading partner after the United States and France. In 2005, the bilateral trade volume reached $39.74 billion, up 35 percent year on year. The number is 10 times that of 1995. According to Zhou Yabin, head of the West Asia and Africa Affairs Department of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, the Sino-African trade volume in 2006 is expected to exceed $50 billion.
Cairo will host the next FOCAC meeting, and economic relations between China and Egypt also made a breakthrough at the summit. On November 6, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding under which Egypt acknowledges China's full market economy status and promises fair treatment for Chinese companies in international trade.
Egypt, the first African country to establish diplomatic relations with China, currently is China's sixth-largest trading partner on the continent with last year's bilateral trade hitting $2.15 billion. The figure totaled $1.96 billion in the first eight months of this year, up 47.6 percent over the same period of 2005. According to Bo Xilai, China's Minister of Commerce, Sino-Egyptian trade may reach $5 billion in the next five years.
Currently, China has several billion dollars of investment in Egypt and the figure is expected to exceed $5 billion in the coming seven to eight years.
Algeria, Sudan, the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone also signed memorandums of understanding with China on November 5 to acknowledge its full market economy status.
To date, more than 60 countries have granted China the full market economy status, including 14 African countries.
Cooperation on malaria
At the summit, Hu promised to build 30 hospitals in Africa and provide 300 million yuan in grants to provide the drug artemisinin and build 30 malaria prevention and treatment centers in Africa.
Artemisinin is one of the new medicines researched and developed by China and registered worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) has assessed the drug to be the one of the most effective medicines to treat the disease. China has almost 80 percent of the world's supply of raw materials needed to produce artemisinin, since 90 percent of the world supply of artemisia, the major herb used in the drug, grows in the Wuling Mountain areas in Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces.
Sino-African cooperation in fighting malaria has been going on for three decades. Up to now, China has supplied anti-malaria medicines at no cost to more than 10 African countries, including Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Niger, Togo, the Central African Republic and Cameroon.
"We are ready now. We can produce artemisinin immediately after we receive orders from the Chinese Government. We can guarantee the timely supply of high-quality artemisinin medicine to African countries," the head of an artemisinin production factory said at the Sino-African Anti-Malaria Exhibition on November 5.
WHO data indicate that a total of 2.5 billion people live in malaria zones, especially in Africa. Of the 300 to 500 million malaria sufferers that emerge each year, Africans account for 90 percent. Malaria has become one of the greatest obstacles to development for African countries.
"We are preparing to establish two pharmaceutical factories in East Africa and West Africa. We expect to locally produce medicines in 2007," said Lu Chunming, General Manager of Beijing Holley-Cotec Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.
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