China, South Africa sign MoU worth 6.5bn dollar

Chinese President Xi Jinping and South African President Jacob Zuma hold talks in Pretoria on Wednesday, December 2, 2015.

Xi is the second sitting Chinese president to visit Zimbabwe after Jiang Zemin in 1996.

Japhet Moyo, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, dismissed Xi’s visit as merely a ‘show.’ He claims Zimbabweans have not benefitted from the economic relations between the two countries.

And there is far less investment from Beijing into Zimbabwe than into any of its neighbours, such as Zambia, Mozambique and Angola.

Xi also must protect an estimated 2 million Chinese working in some of Africa’s most unstable areas – a concern highlighted by a November 20 attack on the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, Mali, that left at least 20 people dead, including three China Railway Construction Corp. executives.

Xi, who was accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, touched down in Harare just after 1000am and was met by his Zimbabwean counterpart President Robert Mugabe amid a colourful mix of Chinese and Zimbabwean pageantry.

“China has been our all weather friend ever since the west started shunning us”, Christopher Mutsvangwa, the former Zimbabwean ambassador to China who nows serves as a minister in Mugabe’s government, told dpa.

“China is the largest developing country and Africa is home to the biggest number of developing countries”.

Ahead of a state visit to South Africa, the Chinese president suggested both sides should always advance the bilateral relationship from a strategic and long-term perspective and continuously cement and enhance political mutual trust.

“Zimbabwe’s parlous economic situation – a 45 percent decline in GDP between 1999 and 2008, a 90 percent jobless rate, chronic food insecurity, a yawning infrastructure deficit – Xi’s visit raises expectations of what China can, or should, do to help its stricken ally”, said The Source publication in Harare on Tuesday.

HARARE, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) – Chinese President Xi Jinping attached importance to the relations with Zimbabwe, hence he made it one of the two African countries he is visiting this year, and the visit is expected to raise the China-Zimbabwe all-weather friendship to a new high, China’s ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping said Friday.

South African Investec, a Johannesburg-based investment bank and asset management firm, agreed to work with China Export-Import Bank to enhance export finance, project finance, and the internationalisation of China’s renminbi currency and its use as a settlement currency in trade. Xi, whose presence was honoured with a military flypast, then inspected a guard of honour.

In addition to bolstering economic ties and investing in infrastructure projects, China has been expanding its role in boosting the strife-torn continent’s security.