On August 10, major newspapers of the Independent Media published the article written by Commercial Counsellor Rong Yansong of the Chinese Embassy in South Africa titiled Ten Cooperation Plans Further Enhances China-Africa Trade and Economic Relations. The full text goes as follows.

Ten Cooperation Plans Further Enhances China-Africa Trade and Economic Relations

Not long ago, Coordinators' Meeting of The Implementation of the Follow-up Actions of The Johannesburg Summit of The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was successfully held in Beijing. The Chinese and African sides recalled the progress made in bilateral and multilateral cooperation to implement the Summit outcomes under the framework of the FOCAC, and reached important consensus on how to more effectively implement the summit outcomes and boost China-Africa cooperation in various fields. Over the past half year, China and Africa have stayed in close communication to meet each other halfway, and made major progress in implementing the outcomes.

According to the incomplete statistics by the Chinese side, since the end of the summit, there have been 182 cooperation agreements signed between China and Africa, totaling approximately USD 32.5 billion, and about 90% of the aggregate amount comes from commercial loans. During the Coordinators' Meeting, the two sides signed another 61 cooperation agreements, involving an amount of approximately USD 18.3 billion. Among them, the Chinese enterprises' direct investment agreements aggregated USD 14.8 billion, contributing for more than 80% of the total. Investment cooperation is becoming the main engine of China-Africa trade and economic cooperation, and China-Africa trade and economic cooperation has entered a new phase.

China-Africa production capacity cooperation has gained significant momentum. After the summit, Forums on the China-Africa Production Capacity Cooperation and Investment have been frequently held. China for the first time held investment promotion fairs for the state visits paid by heads from Nigeria, Togo and other African countries. China has also built platforms for Ethiopia and other countries to attract investment and investors from China, encouraged competent local governments including those of Guangdong and Jiangsu Provinces to discuss investment cooperation with key partners of production capacity cooperation including South Africa and Ethiopia, and signed production capacity cooperation framework agreements with six countries such as Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. China-Africa Industrial Capacity Cooperation Fund has started operation, and the Special Loan for the Development of African SMEs is in place. About 10 Chinese financial institutions have provided financial support for the development of African countries, and cooperated with their counterparts in Morocco, Kenya, Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville and other countries to conduct currency swap business. Currently, a great deal of large-scale infrastructure construction projects in areas such as railway, highway, port, airport, electricity, water supply and communications are now being implemented in an orderly manner. With China's financial support, the continent's first electrified railway linking Addis Ababa and Djibouti will be entirely opened to traffic soon, and the Mombasa-Nairobi standard track railway is expected to be delivered next year. China has reached consensus on co-constructing "East Africa Information Highway" with the six East African countries.

As Minister of Department of International Relation and Cooperation of South Africa, Nkoana-Mashabane said, after the Johannesburg Summit, the Chinese side had been actively implementing the summit outcomes with an impressive efficiency. This opportune Coordinators' Meeting is a manifestation of the new level of Africa-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Cooperation and reflects proactive willingness of both sides to implement the outcomes. The mutually beneficial and Africa-led China-Africa cooperation model upheld by the Chinese side corresponds with the African development goals.

In an effort to jointly create an "upgraded version" of China-Africa cooperation, the Coordinators' Meeting also deepened the exchange of views on cooperation, identified the cooperation priority, and drew out the implementation road map. First, the consensus reached shall be implemented with a scientific approach; the local conditions shall be considered in order to plan and select appropriate projects; and the funds shall be arranged in a scientifically sound manner. Second, with the right direction identified and implemented through pragmatism, the "Ten Cooperation Plans" shall be translated into feasible projects through bilateral channels. Third, the mechanism shall be utilized and implemented in an efficient way; the mechanism of the Forum platform shall be strengthened, and China-Africa intergovernmental trade and economic cooperation mechanism such as trade and economic joint commissions shall be further improved so that the "Ten Cooperation Plans" could be given a fuller play as the major channel.

Eight years ago, despite the global financial crisis, both sides implemented practical measures reached in previous forums fully with mutual assistance, creating a China-Africa cooperation miracle against the crisis. Eight years later, the world economy today is still suffering from sluggish recovery. The respective tasks of development faced by China and Africa are still arduous. Although China's economic growth has slowed down, it still maintained a medium to high growth rate. At the same time, China's economic structural adjustment creates new opportunities for China-Africa cooperation. China will continue to inject positive energy to African economy; China-Africa cooperation will not increase the debt risk of Africa because we will conduct scientific study on the cooperation projects in advance to ensure that the projects will bring social and economic benefits. It is believed that both sides can make full use of the FOCAC mechanism, and make the "Ten Cooperation Plans" the key pillar in "turning crisis into opportunities" once again.

Appendix: