China to increase African co-operation
Chinese President Hu Jintao said today his government will seek closer ties with resource-rich Africa, after signing oil and other agreements with Nigeria and granting the West African giant an aid package.
Hu, on the second and final day of his visit to Nigeria, addressed the country’s parliament on China’s relations with Africa.
“Africa has rich resources and market potentials, whereas China has available effective practices and practical know-how it has gained in the course of modernisation,” Hu said.
China is seeking “a strategic partnership” with the continent that would be mutually beneficial and result in improved living standards for Africa, he said.
China’s interest and growing profile has worried Western rivals – among them countries who may feel their colonial ties should give them an advantage – for Africa’s resources and markets. And some Africans have complained about being flooded with cheap Chinese goods.
“China’s development will not pose a threat to anyone. On the contrary, it will bring more development opportunities to the world,” Hu told Nigeria’s parliament.
The world’s most populous country, with 1.3 billion people, has also set new development targets to increase its gross domestic product and lower energy consumption, the Chinese leader said.
“By the year 2020 ... GDP would quadruple that of 2000 to reach four trillion dollars, averaging 3,000 dollars per head,” Hu said.
China’s economy is growing so fast, its leaders have taken steps to avoid inflation or ballooning bad loans. Growth hit 10.2% in the first quarter, and China is hungry for the energy, timber, minerals and other raw materials Africa can provide.
During the first day of the visit, Hu and his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo presided over the signing of a string of agreements covering co-operation in energy, telecommunications, infrastructure development and health.
“From our assessment this is the century of China to lead the world,” Obasanjo said at a banquet for the Chinese leader yesterday. “And when you’re leading the world we want to be very close behind you.”
Obasanjo’s office released a statement as Hu wrapped up his visit today saying China had granted Nigeria 46 million yuan in aid to be used in part to buy anti-malaria medicines and to train Nigerians in malaria control and prevention. The statement said China also granted Nigeria a new export credit for infrastructure development.
Hu told Nigerian politicians that China will back African Union efforts to end conflicts across the continent.
Obasanjo had welcomed Hu at the airport yesterday in the capital, Abuja, where the Chinese leader’s plane landed in a first sub-Saharan Africa stop in a tour that has included the US, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
Nigeria is the top African producer of crude and the seventh largest in the world, normally pumping 2.5 million barrels per day.
In January, China’s state-controlled oil firm CNOOC announced it had reached a deal to pay 2.3 billion dollars for a 45% stake in a Nigerian offshore oil field.
With 130 million people, Nigeria is also a major market for Chinese-produced goods. But Chinese companies have been accused of flooding local markets with fake and substandard goods, notably textiles. In December, Nigerian officials took the dramatic step of shutting down several shopping centres run by Chinese traders in the commercial capital, Lagos.
In the last five years, China’s trade with Africa has grown fourfold to 40 billion dollars in 2005.
China’s growth has sparked a global race with the West for markets and industrial resources. Africa has become a frontier of opportunity for the world’s most populous country and its fastest growing economy.
That has meant opportunity, aid and even key diplomatic support – China is a veto-wielding UN Security Council member – to some governments shunned by the West, like Sudan and Zimbabwe. Hu is scheduled to head in a few days to Kenya, in East Africa.
