BEIJING May 5 (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang unveiled extra aid for
Africa totalling at least $12 billion on Monday, and offered to share
advance technology with the continent to help with development of high-speed
rail, state media reported.
Li pledged the additional funding in a speech at the Organisation of African
Union headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
China will increase credit lines to Africa by $10 billion and will boost the
China-Africa Development Fund by $2 billion, bringing it to a total of $5
billion, Li said, according to the official Xinhua news agency. He provided
no details of the timeframe.
Li "depicted a dream that all African capitals are connected with high-speed
rail, so as to boost pan-African communication and development," the report
said. As China has advanced technologies in this area, Li said China was
ready to work with Africa "to make this dream come true".
China will also offer $100 million in aid for wildlife protection, Li added,
for a part of the world where the Chinese appetite ivory and rhino horns
have driven some species to the brink of extinction.
It is Li's first visit to Africa since he became premier last year, and
follows on from a trip to the continent by President Xi Jinping in March
2013, when he renewed an offer of $20 billion in loans to Africa between
2013 and 2015.
Li said that the new $10 billion credit line would be on top of the existing
$20 billion already offered, the China News Service reported.
Chinese officials said last week that Li's trip, which also takes in
oil-rich Nigeria and Angola, would not simply be for energy deals and
Beijing will be seeking to help boost African living standards.
Li said he hoped that some of the loans being offered would be used to
support small and medium-seized companies in Africa, adding that economic
development on the continent offered huge opportunities for both China and
Africa.
"History and reality make clear to all: China's development gives
opportunity to Africa; Africa develops, and China also benefits," he said.
Trips by Chinese leaders to Africa are often marked by big natural resource
deals, triggering criticism from some quarters that China is only interested
in the continent's mineral and energy wealth.
China has a relationship with Africa which pre-dates its current
resource-hungry economic boom. In previous decades, China's Communist
leaders supported national liberation movements and newly independent states
across the continent.
Africans broadly see China as a healthy counterbalance to Western influence
but, as ties mature, there are growing calls from policymakers and
economists for more balanced trade relations. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard;
Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)