At the second China-Africa People's Forum held in Suzhou of east China's Jiangsu province, experts are expressing the idea that both China and African countries are at the crossing of their economic development.
 
Dean of the Institute of African Studies of Zhejiang Normal University, Liu Hongwu, says the biggest change for the African countries in the past fifty or sixty years is the formation of the concept of "modern country".

"Most African people are now considering themselves as a member of a modern country, which has equipped the intellectuals with an incentive to make a change to their countries."

At the same time, China is also facing the necessity to change after 30 years of fast development.
China's special representative on African affairs, Ambassador Zhong Jianhua, emphasizes the importance of transforming China's economy.

"China's economy has come to a point that we have to transform it. We can no longer continue with that kind of primitive or preliminary development. You have to transfer some of the labor intensive work to other countries. "

For Ambassador Zhong, Africa would be the best potential "other countries", and he explains why.

"They have the huge demand to improve their lives, they have the huge demand to build the house, infrastructure, industrialize themselves, including every daily consumer goods, all these things, when they have a small scale, you can supply with the export, when they have the large scale, you have to set up all these workshops in the continent. "

As the fourth largest investor in Africa, China is welcomed in the continent. But rather than accept Chinese firms hiring people from China to work in Africa, African people are now expecting more.

Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo encourages Chinese firms to employ local people in Africa.

"I would (like to) see that when Chinese contracting firms are working in Nigeria or anywhere in Africa, let them source it locally."

With opportunities and challenges lying ahead, both China and Africa need to be more creative and more patient to sort out the differences between the two sides, and make their cooperation more mutually beneficial than ever before.