Global Times - African FMs hail China pledge, urge regional cooperation

African FMs hail China pledge, urge regional cooperation

Source: Global Times
[05:27 November 10 2009]
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African foreign ministers Monday welcomed a pledge by China to offer the continent $10 billion in concessional loans, but they said regional cooperation was also vital.

"Africa is hungry for development. Africa has lagged behind for too long (and) has always been treated and judged with very, very lopsided standards," Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula told AFP.

"The standards that Europe has been imposing on Africa are not the same standards Europe imposes on Eastern Europe, for example," he said. "And here, the Chinese are coming and saying, 'You want a railway line? We have the money and the technology to build it for you.' Who wouldn't take that?"

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to give Africa $10 billion in loans at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation that opened Sunday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Wen said the new measures would focus on reducing poverty and assistance in infrastructure and agriculture, and he said China was also vowing to remove tariffs on most goods from the least-developed African countries.

At a news conference at the end of the gathering Monday, China's Commerce Minister Chen Deming also promised to open Chinese markets to African exports and help Africa adapt to climate change.

Chinese companies will be directed to "assume more social responsibility in Africa and create job opportunities in African countries so the locals can get the benefits from Sino-African cooperation," he said.

"We have benefited extremely" from cooperation with China, Sierra Leone Foreign Minister Zainab Bangura told reporters, adding that China has built hospitals and roads in the poverty-ridden country.

But Wetangula and Bangura also said they hoped to see more cooperation on the continent itself.

"What we'd like is regional and sub-Saharan integration," Bangura said. "We should not turn this forum into bilateral issues ... but issues focused on regional economies."

According to Wetangula, trade between African countries stood at only 10 percent of the continent's trade.

AFP