China to increase cooperation 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.

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 development will not pose a threat to anyone. On the contrary, it will bring more development opportunities to the world,” he said.

During the first day of the visit, President Hu and his Nigerian counterpart President 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 late-night banquet for the Chinese leader.

“And when you’re leading the world we want to be very close behind you.”

Hu told Nigerian politicians that China will provide Africa with help to fight diseases such as malaria and bird flu and 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 $2.3bn (€1.8bn) for a 45% stake in a Nigerian offshore oil field.

With 130 million people, Nigeria is also a major market for Chinese-produced goods.

In the last five years, China’s trade with Africa has grown fourfold to $40bn (€32bn) 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.