25
Sep
What is worth special mentioning is that there is huge potential and space for industrial production cooperation between China and Africa. After years of development, China has entered a more mature stage of industrialization with competitive industries and surplus capacity. China is the world’s largest producer of over 220 categories of industrial products including steel, cement and automobiles. China produces 38% of the world’s machine tools, 41% of ships, and
mbassador of the People’s Republic of China to the State of Eritrea.
China and Africa are far away from each other, while the friendship and cooperation between us date back to history. Since 1950’s, the African countries embarked on the journey of national liberation and independence, bringing in a new phase in the unity and cooperation between China and Africa. The first-generation leaders of the People’s Republic of China-Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and others-and African statesmen of the older generation ushered China-Africa relations into a new era and laid a solid foundation for the long term friendship and cooperation between the two sides. Over the more than half a century since then, China-Africa friendly relations and cooperation have stood the test of times, and are being constantly consolidated and developed.
Since entering the new century,the political mutual trust between China and Africa has been strengthening and there are frequent exchange of high level visits. China has become Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009.
The trade volume between China and Africa reached US$ 221.88 billion in 2014, a new historical high.China’s total direct investment in Africa is nearly US$ 30 billion and Chinese commercial loans to Africa have exceeded US$ 50 billion, with cooperation projects all over the African continent. China’s assistance to Africa totaled over 150 billion RMB Yuan, funding the construction of over 1000 projects in Africa in the past several decades.
In recent years, more than half of China’s assistance is used for African countries.Personnel exchanges between the two sides have become increasingly close. In 2013, 1.895 million visits were made by Chinese nationals with Africa as their first stop and 553,000 visits were made by African people to China.
The expanding and deepening of cooperation between the two sides have played an important role for our respective nation building and creating a better life for our peoples.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Africa in 2013, he made a commitment to developing relations with Africa with sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith. When Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited Africa in 2014, he described a prospect for the two sides to cooperate on three major networks of high-speed railway, expressway and aviation. China-Africa cooperation is a shining area in China’s foreign relations .In the long years of sincere cooperation and mutual support,the Chinese and African peoples have successfully opened up a way of cooperation, which keeps up with the trend of times, conforms with each other’s realities and have its unique characteristics and advantages.
China today has made world renowned achievement in the development of its social productive forces and comprehensive national strength. China now is the second largest economy in the world, the largest trading country in commodities, the country with the largest foreign currency reserve, the third largest investor in foreign markets, and the largest trading partners with nearly 130 countries.
Of course,China remains the largest developing country in the world and its per capita GDP is just over 6,000 US dollars, still lower than the world average. Development is very uneven between its urban and rural areas and between different regions, which is typical of a developing country. China has a long way to go before it realizes modernization.
Talking about the current economic situation in China, I would like to quote the special address made by Premier Li Keqiang at the opening ceremony of the Summer Davos meeting in Dalian, northeast China, on September 10. Premier Li said that the Chinese economy is stable and moving in a positive direction despite the moderation in speed. Although difficulties remain, there are more opportunities than challenges. The ups and downs in the economy may have formed the shape of a curving wave, but the underlying trend remains to be positive. The fundamentals underpinning a stable Chinese economy have not changed. For me to summarize Premier Li’s remarks, he gave three major reasons for the confidence that the Chinese economy is on the right track and its future will be even brighter.
First, China had the advantages of huge potential and inner tenacity. China is going through the process of a new type of industrialization, IT application, urbanization and agricultural modernization, and these will generate strong domestic demand. China is vast in its territories and has diverse industries. Instead of relying on one particular industry, China is supported by a complete system of industries. The Chinese economy is highly resilient and shock-resistant.
Second, China is making comprehensive reforms, and is accelerating structural reform and pursuing an innovation-driven development strategy to fully unleash the potential of its economic growth.
The purpose of advancing structural reform is to unleash the infinite creativity of the people and promote mass entrepreneurship and innovation. China has continually taken measures to streamline administration, delegate government power, strengthen regulation and improve services, and consequently, the people’s creativity and entrepreneurial passion have been unlocked.China has a labour force of 900 million people, more than 7 million students graduate from colleges and universities every year.
More and more people are devoting themselves to entrepreneurship and innovation, generating new supplies and releasing new demands, thus providing a strong driving force for stabilizing the economic growth of China. Over 10,000 new market entities are registered on an average daily basis, which create large job opportunities, and this trend has continued for more than one year and a half since last year, and this momentum is continuing now.
Third, China will open still wider to the world. There will be no change in China’s overall policy on FDI. Specific steps will be taken to attract more foreign investment through greater openness. China has come up with the initiatives to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and to promote global cooperation on industrial production capacity.
These initiatives could help further open up China and forge a more balanced and inclusive global industrial chain. This in turn could pool the comparative strengths of all countries and foster a global community of common interests and development for the purpose of win-win, inclusive and common progress. Global cooperation on production capacity will match supply with demand effectively, and generate more demands through innovation on the supply side.
China and Africa have broad common interests, and have a solid foundation for cooperation. China is the most populous and largest developing country in the world, while Africa is the continent with the largest concentration of developing countries.
The economies of the two sides are highly complementary. Cooperation between the two sides is in conformity with the development trend of the world and supplements each other. There are a wide range of areas for the two sides to conduct cooperation, such as energy, mines, ecological protection, infrastructure construction of roads, railways, aviation, telecommunications and power supply, and in areas of industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization etc..
What is worth special mentioning is that there is huge potential and space for industrial production cooperation between China and Africa. After years of development, China has entered a more mature stage of industrialization with competitive industries and surplus capacity. China is the world’s largest producer of over 220 categories of industrial products including steel, cement and automobiles. China produces 38% of the world’s machine tools, 41% of ships, and 60% of power generation equipment. These are highly competitive industries and production capacity.
The relocation of high quality production capacity overseas is an important step to relieve the relatively saturated Chinese domestic market, improve quality and efficiency of the Chinese economy, is conducive to the successful upgrading of the Chinese economy. This will in turn lend a stronger impetus to economic growth of African countries.
Most African countries are in the early stages of economic take-off or industrialization and urgently need large amounts of external capital, equipment and technologies. China enjoys unique and comparative advantages in industrial production capacity, such as advanced and operable equipment, mature and reliable technologies, cost-effectiveness and no strings attached.
China has capital and foreign exchange reserves and will make overseas investment of over US$ 650 billion in the next five years, and this can provide strong financial support for China’s industrial go-global effort. Many developing countries are looking to have cooperation with China in production capacity and there is considerable space and potential for such cooperation.
The Summit Meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) will be held in South Africa in December this year, and will certainly promote further development of China-Africa relation on the current basis. China and Africa should seize the opportunity and open a new chapter in the cooperation between the two sides.
The relations between China and Eritrea are an important part in China’s relations with African countries. China and Eritrea established diplomatic relations right on the day of May 24, 1993, when the State of Eritrea was founded. Ever since then, despite the vicissitude in international situation, our bilateral relations have been developing smoothly and healthily, with frequent exchange of friendly visits, and deepening of cooperation in all areas. Leaders of our two countries have kept close contacts and communications.
China is Eritrea’s largest trading partner and the two countries have fruitful cooperation in the areas of agriculture, mining, infrastructure construction, culture,education,health and people to people exchanges.
Eritrea is a country with a long history and civilization and has breath-taking and beautiful natural sceneries. Multi-ethnic groups with different religious beliefs live with each other in the country in harmony. The Eritrean people live a peaceful and alive life. Since independence and as one of the youngest countries in the world, Eritrea has made tremendous progress and achievements in its nation building endeavors. Eritrea is country with great potential for development with its rich resources, natural produce and well-educated young talents.
As a young and new developing country with huge potential for development, there is a huge potential for cooperation between China and Eritrea in the fields of industry, mining, agriculture,fishing,tourism,aviation,telecommunications and other infrastructures.
China is willing to join hands with Eritrea to further strengthen the all dimensional bilateral cooperation and continually explore new areas of cooperation. I am confident that there is a bright prospect for our future bilateral cooperation and this will surely benefit our two countries and peoples to a larger extent, and will at the same time make greater contributions to the cause of peace and development in Africa and the world at large.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201509240210.html