China Says : African nations prefer industrialization to infrastructure development.

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JOHANNESBURG. At a briefing on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in South Africa on Tuesday, China’s top Africa diplomat said that African countries want China to shift its focus from building infrastructure on the continent to local industrialization.

Foreign Ministry official Wu Peng said, “African integration is already escalating, and many African countries (have) asked China to consider (a) shift (of) our focus.”Wu argued that the amendment was necessary because of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), which went into effect at the beginning of 2021 and will eventually allow African countries to trade without tariffs.

 

At a special roundtable on the sidelines of the BRICS bloc meeting (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) on August 22-24, China will discuss its plans for African industrialization with African leaders.According to Boston University’s estimates, Chinese lenders, primarily state-owned banks, committed to lending $160 billion to African countries between 2000 and 2020.

After Xi announced the “Belt and Road Initiative” in 2013 to finance infrastructure in developing countries, loan commitments skyrocketed, reaching a peak of $28.4 billion in 2016, and then precipitously declining to $1.9 billion by 2020.

When asked why the “urgent” discussion of “emergency issues” couldn’t be postponed until the next Forum for China-Africa Cooperation, a regular meeting between Chinese and African ministers scheduled for next year, Wu said it was because the situation was “urgent.”He also predicted a rise in investment in Africa from Chinese firms, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises.

As Wu put it, “the trend in the relatively midterm or long range (is that) Chinese companies are willing to take some risk (to go into Africa),” regardless of what happens to the global economy or the Chinese economy.

 

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