By Li Shou’en, CCTV.com Reporter
At a press conference held at the Press Center of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) this morning (Tuesday), Xu Jinghu, Chinese Government's Special Representative for African Affairs, said that the financing to Africa announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the opening ceremony of FOCAC will help with the development of African nations, instead of accumulating debts for them.
China will extend a total of 60 billion U.S. dollars of financing to Africa in the form of government assistance, as well as investment and financing by financial institutions and companies.
The financing includes 15 billion U.S. dollars of grants, interest-free loans and concessional loans, 20 billion U.S. dollars of credit lines, the setting up of a 10-billion-U.S. dollars special fund for development financing and a 5-billion-U.S. dollars special fund for financing imports from Africa. Chinese companies are also encouraged to make at least 10 billion U.S. dollars of investment in Africa in the next three years.
While answering foreign media outlet’s question on whether the 60 billion US dollars will “add too much unsustainable debt burden for African countries,” Xu clarified that financing support is based on equality, mutual beneficial cooperation, with win-win results.
Xu Jinghu, Chinese Government's Special Representative for African Affairs, at the press conference. (Photo/Li Shouen)
She added, as to how to implement the eight initiatives announced by President Xi at the opening ceremony of FOCAC, China and the African nations will discuss on what kind of projects to cooperate on the principles of mutual benefits and win-win cooperation.
Africa is currently on a fast developing path and is committed to realize its industrialization, modernization and economic diversification, so it is indeed in need of capital. But the reality is that Africa is short of capital, in addition there is also an insufficiency of talents and technologies. These three main factors are the bottle necks that hinder Africa’s development.
Catering to Africa’s needs and wishes, China is mapping out cooperation initiatives and carrying out pragmatic projects to solve such concerns.
The economy of China and African nations are highly complementary, as China has entered a new stage of development, which can provide support to African nations in terms of talents, capital, and infrastructure, etc.
Xu pointed out that China and African partners will conduct careful feasibility research to evaluate the prospects of all the cooperative projects, to ensure they can help the African nations to achieve self-reliant development and avoid possible debt and fiscal problems.
China is helping the development of African nations by providing financial support, instead of accumulating debts to them.
She also acknowledged that debt problem is indeed a burden to some Africa nations, but that’s caused by the seasonal fluctuations of the global economy, which have increased the costs of financing for African countries. Also, most African nations’ economy rely on their exports of raw materials, but the price cutting in raw materials in the international market has aggregated debt problems for African countries.
“If we watch more closely into those African nations with a high ratio of debts, we will find out that China is actually not on the list of creditors.” She said, “So it is senseless and groundless to blame the Chinese side for it.”
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