Chinese premier proposes China-Africa cooperation upgrade

Addis Ababa, May 5 (IANS) Chinese Premier Li Keqiang Monday proposed that China and Africa earnestly boost collaboration in industry, finance, poverty reduction, ecological protection, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security so as to create an upgraded version of their all-round cooperation.

Li outlined the proposal in a speech delivered at the headquarters of the African Union in which he expounded China's Africa policy and reaffirmed Beijing's commitment to further deepening the China-Africa comprehensive cooperative partnership, Xinhua reported.

With regard to industrial cooperation, Li noted the rapid growth of bilateral trade over recent years and urged the two sides to bring the volume to $400 billion by 2020. The figure stood at $210.2 billion in 2013.

China was ready to expand cooperation with Africa in building road, rail, telecommunications, power grid and other infrastructure so as to help the continent realise regional interconnection, he said, adding that Beijing also encouraged Chinese enterprises to form joint ventures with African counterparts in a bid to improve Africa's regional aviation industry.

The premier also highlighted a dream of connecting African capitals with high-speed rail, saying that China was willing to use its world-leading technologies in this area to help make the dream come true so as to improve pan-African communication and development.

In the financial area, Li said China has decided to increase its loans for African countries by $10 billion, which brings the total pledged amount to $30 billion, and to expand the China-Africa development fund by $2 billion to $5 billion.

As to poverty reduction, China will train 2,000 agricultural technicians and management personnel for Africa in the coming five years, and tilt its assistance toward such welfare areas as drinking water and prevention and control of epidemics.

Stressing that ecological protection was a shared responsibility of all humanity, Li said the Chinese government would provide Africa with $10 million of free aid for wildlife preservation and promote joint research in protecting biological diversity, preventing and controlling desertification and promoting modern agriculture.

In respect of people-to-people exchanges, Li said China would carry out its African talent plan in an all-round manner and would provide African countries with 18,000 government scholarships and help them train 30,000 various professionals as scheduled.

As for peace and security, Li said China supported Africa to solve African problems in the African way and stood ready to assist Africa's capacity-building in such areas as peace-keeping, counter-terrorism and anti-piracy.

China, he said, would offer South Sudan another 50 million yuan (about $8 million) of humanitarian aid to help deal with the humanitarian crisis in the African country.