China has helped Africa: Mugabe

Speaking at the Forum on China Africa Cooperation in South Africa, Xi outlined 10 areas that will receive funding including infrastructure projects, aid for drought-stricken countries and thousands of scholarships for African students.

Mr. Xi told dozens of African leaders gathered at a China-Africa summit in Johannesburg that the funds would be invested in 10 projects over three years.

Over a long time, China and Africa have been standing side by side in all weathers and offering help to each other, he said at the opening ceremony of the two-day Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

Despite a recent drop in Chinese investment in Africa – which fell 40 percent in the first half of 2015 as Chinese demand cooled – it still remains Africa’s largest trading partner.

Xi said that China would “provide a total of $60bn of funding support that includes $5bn of grants in zero interest loans (and) $35bn in preferential facility and export credit loans and concessional loans”.

South African President Jacob Zuma, who co-chaired the summit with Mr Xi, said African countries needed Chinese help to process their abundant natural resources, which he said had made the continent vulnerable to exploitation in the past.

In a statement released yesterday Minister Patrick Chinamasa said: “In a clear step to further cement the co-operation between the two states, financing arrangements for the coming year were signed between the two countries which will convert provisions of the Government’s economic blue-print, Zim-Asset, into programmes of action as championed by President Mugabe”.

Africans broadly see China as a healthy counterbalance to Western influence.

Here is the representative of a country once called poor.

This, President Xi said, will ensure that China-Africa relations continue for generations.

China had pumped more than $30 billion into Africa by the end of 2014, more than 60 times the sum in 2000.

Referring to the hotel attack in Mali’s capital earlier this month, Xi strongly condemned the brutality that caused serious casualties including three Chinese citizens.

President Xi told more than 35 African heads of state that the momentum of rapid growth in Africa was “unstoppable” and that he will make sure China will be involved every step of the way in the continent’s progress.

“China supports the resolution of African issues by Africans in the African way”, He continued.