On December 3 2015, the High-level Dialogue between Chinese-African Leaders and Business Communities and the 5th Conference of the Chinese and African Entrepreneurs, jointly held by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and the South-African Ministry of Industry and Trade opened in Johannesburg South Africa. Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming attended and addressed the opening ceremony of the conference, emphasizing that the China-Africa trade and economic cooperation has entered a completely new stage and putting forward four suggestions for the cooperative development.
Qian said that China and the African countries adhere to the principle and concept of mutual respect and equality and mutual benefit all the time, deepen the development of the relations of friendship and cooperation and set an example of the south-south cooperation in the international relationship. China endeavors to promote the inclusive growth and sustainable development of Africa, pays high attention to strengthening the endogenetic impetus of the development of Africa and strives to enable the development fruits to benefit all walks of the society. In this September, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a series of significant measures when attending a series of summits of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations. At the summit of the forum, President Xi will announce multi-term new measures of the practical cooperation to Africa on behalf of the Chinese government to contribute new strength to building the China-Africa comprehensive strategic partnership and promoting the realization of the peace and development of Africa.
Qian pointed out that in recent years, China and Africa have constantly expanded the cooperation space and improved the cooperation quality based on the common development goals with rich fruits. Both sides have entered a completely new development stage. Firstly, the bilateral trade increased rapidly. In 2014, the China-Africa import and export trade volume reached US$221.96 billion. The annual growth has been 5.7% since 2012. China has become the largest trade partner and an important raw material export market of the African countries. Secondly, the two-way investment was increasingly deepened. In 2014, the Chinese direct investment to Africa reached US$3.2 billion and the annual increase in recent three years was 12.8%. At the same time, the actual investment from the African countries to China has accumulated to US$3.79 billion since 2012. Thirdly, the cooperation in the construction of the infrastructure has obtained remarkable achievements. The contract work of Chinese enterprises to Africa involves many fields of the construction of the infrastructure such as railway, highway, airport and power station. In 2014, the completed turnover reached US$52.97 billion and the annual growth in recent three years was 13.9%. Fourthly, the capacity cooperation was steadily promoted. At present, China and Africa have more and more investment cooperation projects in fields such as railway, electric power, non-ferrous metals, chemical industry, automobile and telecommunication. Chinese enterprises have invested and built more than 20 overseas trade and economic cooperative zones in Africa with an accumulative investment volume of US$4.68 billion. Fifthly, the cooperation between China and Africa promoted the development of the people’s living standard of Africa. Since 2012, the Chinese-invested enterprises in Africa has accumulatively paid all kinds of taxes of US$2.19 billion to host countries and provided almost 600,000 job opportunities for local areas. Chinese government has positively provided assistance in the construction of a large number of projects, improved the living standard and the conditions of the infrastructure of local people and gave a hand to the African countries in emergent situations to jointly deal with all kinds of emergencies such as the Ebola epidemic disease and the refugee crisis of North African regions.
Qian proposed four suggestions to comprehensively improve the China-Africa practical cooperation level. Firstly, efforts should be made to jointly discuss the important cooperative fields according to the actual requirements of Africa. China is willing to jointly adhere to the principle of “market operation, government guidance, equality and mutual benefit and focusing on actual effect” with African countries. China would like to strengthen the cooperation in the key fields such as capacity, manufacturing industry, agriculture and the construction of infrastructure as well as promote the process of industrialization, urbanization and regional economic integration. . Secondly, efforts should be made to practically promote the smooth implementation of the bilateral significant cooperation projects. China is willing to work with African countries to further build and improve the multilateral and bilateral cooperative mechanism, accelerate promoting the China-Africa cooperation in the “three major networks of high-speed railway, high-speed highway and regional aviation and the industrialization of infrastructure” , strengthen the cooperation with the African Union in cross-national and cross-regional infrastructure construction of Africa, encourage and support the Chinese enterprises to jointly build all kinds of overseas trade and economic cooperation zones with African countries. Thirdly, efforts should be made to strengthen the financial support to the China-Africa capacity cooperation and the construction of infrastructure. China is willing to support the relevant financial institutions to positively participate in the China-Africa capacity cooperation and the construction of infrastructure. China will also take advantage of multilateral and bilateral financing institutions and business operation funds such as the Silk Road Fund, the BRICS Development Bank and the China-Africa Development Fund and encourage enterprises of both countries to expand the cross-border usage of RMB in the trade investment. Fourthly, efforts should be made to inject new power to enable the China-Africa trade and economic cooperation to help Africa realize sustainable development, support the African countries to improve the trade investment environment, accelerate the development of green science and technology and innovative industry, increase the investment in the ecological environmental protection, public health and medical service and farmland water conservancy establishment, give play to the demonstration role agricultural cooperation projects and pay more attention to the soft power construction such as talent training.
During the conference, the signing ceremony of China-Africa enterprises cooperation agreements was held. Both sides signed 22 cooperative agreements in total, involving many industries such as infrastructure, chemical industry and finance, with a total volume of US$13.4 billion. Almost 650 representatives from the governments and enterprises of the two countries such as the Chairman of the African Union Commission Zuma, the Chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Jiang Zengwei and the Vice Minister of Chinese Industry and Information Liu Lihua attended the opening ceremony of the conference.
