From: Tsegai Emmanuel (emmanuelt40@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Nov 08 2009 - 10:31:15 EST
Chinese premier pledges funds, aid to Africa
By TAREK EL-TABLAWY, AP Business Writer Tarek El-tablawy, Ap Business Writer
38 mins ago
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – China's premier on Sunday pledged $10 billion in low
interest loans to African nations over the next three years and said
Beijingwould cancel the government
debts of some of the poorest of those countries.
The announcement by Wen Jiabao looked to deflect criticism that China's
investments in the continent were motivated purely by greed. China is one of
the largest investors in Africa, along with the United States and Europe.
At a two-day China-Africa summit, Wen Jiabao also said China would build 100
new clean energy projects for Africa over the same period as part of an
effort to help the continent deal with climate change issues.
"We will help Africa build up financing capacity," Wen said at the start of
the two-day Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit. "We will provide $10
billion in concessional loans to African countries."
Concessional loans are ones that offer generous terms — better than market
rates — to poorer countries.
China's inroads into Africa have come at a price for Beijing. The country
has been accused by some in the West of ignoring Africa's needs and the
dismal rights records of some of its countries while looking only to sate
its hunger for the fuel it needs to drive its bustling economy.
China has, for example, been a key force in developing Sudan's vital oil
sector even as the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum is accused of
atrocities in the Darfur region. More recently, a $7 billion mining deal was
signed between a little known Chinese company and Guinea's government — an
agreement that came weeks after soldiers there opened fire on demonstrators
and raped women in the streets.
But Wen said while many in the world have only now begun to take note of
China's role in Africa, it was a relationship that dates back five decades
and included helping the countries throw off the yoke of colonialism.
"The Chinese people cherish sincere friendship toward the African people,
and China's support to Africa's development is concrete and real," Wen said
at a forum that attracted leaders such as Sudan's Omar el-Bashir and
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe — heads of state out-of-favor with the West.
"Whatever change that may take place in the world, our friendship with
African people will not change," Wen said. "Our commitment to deepening
mutually beneficial cooperation ... will not change, and our policy of
supporting Africa's economic and social development will not change."
Wen said that as part of its support for Africa and growing trade ties with
China, Beijing would take eight new measures over the next three years,
including helping Africa build up its financing capacity.
Along with the loans — double the amount pledged two years earlier at a
similar summit in Beijing — Wen also said that for the most heavily indebted
and least developed African nations, China would cancel their debts
associated with interest free government loans set to mature at the end of
this year.
The caveat was that the debt forgiveness was restricted to those nations
that have diplomatic relations with China — a condition likely to rankle
critics who argue that China has made its support conditional on countries
backing it fully, including by renouncing ties with Taiwan. The overwhelming
majority of African nations have diplomatic ties with China.
Wen said that China would also build energy projects that cover solar power,
biogas and small hydro plants. Other initiatives under the plan include
boosting training of African professional, new schools, and phasing in zero
tariff treatment for 95 percent of the products from the least developed
countries that have relations with Beijing.
The steps are the latest in a growing trade relationship between China and
Africa — a push that has seen trade grow tenfold in the past eight years to
reach almost $107 billion by the end of 2008.
The latest pledge for loans builds on $5 billion that China had pledged to
the continent during the 2006 Sina-African summit. That gathering in Beijing
was widely seen as a catalyst fueling growth in Africa, a continent ravaged
by some of the world's highest poverty rates, a battle against the AIDS
epidemic and chronic internal conflicts.
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