Amid weak recovery of world economy and ongoing euro crisis in 2012, China, strictly adhering to the principles of “equity and mutual benefit, focus on results, diversity and mutual benefit”, actively devoted to strengthening economic and trade relations with African countries. China-Africa cooperation continued to improve both in scale and level, thus making great contributions to economic and social development as well as the improvement of living standards of the people in both regions, and comprehensively consolidating and deepening the new type of strategic partnership between China and Africa.

I. High-level visits strengthened friendly relations.

In 2012, such Party and state leaders as Jia Qinglin, Hui Liangyu and Li Yuanchao etc. visited Ethiopia and other 9 African countries respectively. Political leaders of 13 African countries like Zuma, the President of South Africa and Kiir, the President of Southern Sudan visited China successively, during which, the political leaders of China and African countries spoke highly of their traditional friendly relations, and fully expressed their desire and determination to promote mutual support and strengthen pragmatic cooperation. Through such visits, China-Africa friendship was consolidated and mutual trust was further enhanced, thus strengthening the basis for all-round, rapid and sustainable development of China-Africa economic and trade cooperation.

II. Forum on China-Africa Cooperation continued its glories.

In 2012, the economic and trade measures on China-Africa pragmatic cooperation were implemented on schedule in the fourth ministerial meeting of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, having realized the solemn commitments of Chinese government and people to support Africa and promote mutual development. The fifth ministerial meeting was held successfully in July of this year at Beijing, during which the President Hu Jintao, on behalf of Chinese government, announced new measures to further deepen China-Africa pragmatic cooperation in 5 fields. Three of such fields involve economic and trade cooperation, namely expansion of investment and financing cooperation, expansion of development assistance and support of construction of African integration. The said measures guided the development direction of China-Africa economic and trade relations in the coming 3 years, responded to earnest expectation of African people, enriched mutual cooperation in form and content, thus receiving high praise by all representatives present and gained wide attention of international community.

III. Inter-governmental cooperation mechanism was increasingly improved.

In 2012, China and Djibouti set up the mechanism of bilateral Joint Committee of Economics and Trade; and held the new round of bilateral JETC with Equatorial Guinea and Mauritius and others to coordinate and promote key issues in bilateral economic and trade cooperation. Meanwhile, in active response to demands of African parties, Chinese government continuously expanded cooperation with African regional organizations in order to build a platform for Chinese enterprises to participate in the economic integration process of Africa. Additionally, in 2012, China and Economic Community of West African States (hereinafter referred to as “ECOWAS”) set up the mechanism of JETC for joint cooperation in such fields as trade, investment and infrastructure construction etc. Followed by the mechanism of JETC of East African Community, this is the second mechanism of economic and trade cooperation set up between China and African sub-regional organizations, which has launched economic and trade cooperation and dialogue between China and ECOWAS.

IV. Bilateral trade structure was continuously improved.

From January to October 2012, China-Africa trade maintained a growth of 20%, 14 percentage points higher than the average growth of national foreign trade, and amounted to USD 163.9 billion, basically flat compared with trade volume in 2011. It is expected that the full-year figures would set another record high. To further improve trade structure and expand import from African countries, as of January 2012, the most underdeveloped 30 African countries which have established diplomatic relations with China began to enjoy free duties for 60% export commodities to China; meanwhile, African Commodity Exhibition Center set up at Yiwu attracted more than 2,000 varieties of commodities from over 20 African countries through supportive policies like deduction and exemption of operating expenses, thus more and more African featured products began to come into the sights of Chinese consumers.

V. China rapidly increased the investment in Africa.

From January to October 2012, non-financial direct investment of China in Africa amounted to USD 1.5 billion, realizing a 17% rise year on year. Africa has became one of the emerging destinations for overseas investment of Chinese enterprises; and over 2,000 Chinese enterprises settled in Africa, involving various fields as agriculture, telecommunications, energy, processing and manufacturing as well as catering etc.. To further guide Chinese enterprises to expand their investment in Africa, Chinese government actively set up investment platform, and launched such measures as China-Africa Development Fund, economic and trade cooperation zone and Special Loan for the Development of African SMEs etc. successively. At present, over 140 enterprises has signed agreements to settle 6 economic and trade cooperation zones in five African countries set up by Chinese enterprises, while China-Africa Development Fund had over 50 selected projects in 30 African countries and Special Loan for the Development of African SMEs supported over 20 projects.

VI. Cooperation on contracted projects grew vigorously.

At present, Africa is the second largest market of overseas contracted projects for Chinese enterprises. From January to October 2012, Chinese enterprises’ newly signed project contracts in Africa amounted to USD 38.2 billion with the accomplished turnover of USD 28.9 billion, an increase of 27% and 6% on year-on-year basis, accounting for 1/3 of total turnover of contracted projects in foreign countries by China over the same period. Cooperation projects involve various fields as electricity, communication, water conservancy, road, bridge and port construction etc. Along with deepening cooperation, Chinese government began to encourage some enterprises with strength to expand to upstream fields of cooperation projects like planning and design etc. as well later management and operation of such projects, guided financial institutions and enterprises to carry out discussion and planning with African parties with respect to transnational and cross-regional large-scale infrastructure construction in Africa, and develop the feasibility study.

(Translated by Peng Ling)

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