China to pledge $60 B for African development plan

World Today

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers his speech during the opening ceremony of the Johannesburg Summit for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, Friday Dec. 4, 2015. Jinping said that every time he visited Africa, he saw new progress and new changes on this continent. (AP Photo)

In his keynote speech at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Johannesburg on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced major financial packages which would further deepen bilateral cooperation and help Africa realize independent and sustainable development.

Xi proposed to lift China-Africa ties to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and vowed to provide $60 billion to support 10 major proposed projects across Africa in the next three years. He said China will also train 200,000 African technicians and invite 40,000 people to study in China.

“China and Africa have always been a community of common destiny, with the same historical experiences and the same course of struggle having made the two peoples forge profound friendship”, Xi said while addressing the delegates from about 50 African nations.

Xi pledged that China will provide agricultural projects in 100 villages in Africa and 1 billion yuan ($156 million) emergency food aid and carry 50 aid programs to improve Africa’s internal and external trade.

China will continue to participate in the United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa and will provide 60 million US dollars to the African Union to bolster Africa’s rapid-response forces, Xi said.

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Themed “Africa-China Progressing Together: Win-Win Cooperation for Common Development,” the summit is scheduled to conclude Saturday with the release of a declaration and an action plan.

The declaration and the action plan are expected to proclaim the views on China-Africa relations as well as major regional and global issues and will also map out future cooperation between the world’s second largest economy and the African continent.