China’s Xi visits Zimbabwe’s Mugabe

Xi will start his trip in Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, where Chinese projects have been one of the few pillars holding up an economy in dire straits under Mugabe’s rule.

Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce President, Davison Norupiri, said business welcome Mr. Xi’s pledge to support local business people.

The Chinese President Xi Jinping has signed 10 investment deals with Zimbabwe on Tuesday evening, pledging to continue cooperating with the investment-hungry country as it attempts to reverse a prolonged economic meltdown.

“The Chinese investors are becoming quite strong in terms of their investments in Zimbabwe”.

The Mali attack showed that “China’s vast business interests in Africa face an uncertain future if security issues are not tackled”, said Shu Yunguo, director of the Center for African Studies at Shanghai Normal University. “It has milestone importance to the development of Africa-China relations and more balanced, inclusive and sustainable development of the world”, said the leader of the world’s most populous country.

“We agreed that more could, and should be, done to increase our trade and investment figures”.

Xi is on a five-day African visit that includes the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation with leaders from across the continent in Johannesburg on Friday and Saturday.

The two nations had a “deep and firm” friendship, Mr Xi said in an article in Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald newspaper.

“The visit of President Xi is going to consolidate and cement some of the agreements and in fact undertaking also to further co-operate with respect to those agreements which are not yet mature for signing at this moment”, Chinamasa said.

While in Africa, Mr Xi will be hosted by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, a longtime Chinese ally who now heads the African Union. Calling China Zimbabwe’s “best friend” on the worldwide stage and describing Xi’s visit as a significant event in the development of bilateral ties, Mugabe told Xinhua in a recent interview that he will confer with Xi on bilateral cooperation in multiple areas.

In July, Zimbabwe’s French-backed PER Lusulu Power signed an agreement with China State Construction Engineering Corp Ltd to build a $1.1 billion coal power station starting in April 2016, with the 600MW plant being the first phase of a 2 000 MW project.

Xi will fly to South Africa on Wednesday, where he is expected to preside over a China-Africa economic and investment conference from December 4 to 5.

But analysts cautioned that “as China’s economy slows, and rebalances from investment-driven growth to consumption, so too will its demand for resources” and added that this could harm political regimes in Africa that now largely depended on Chinese resource-extraction centred deals.

China is already a major investor in Africa, from technology to infrastructure, health and mining.