President Xi Launches Second Africa Development Plan

From Beijing and in the presence of leaders from 54 African countries, the Chinese president inaugurated the second plan to develop Africa.

As African leaders expected, President Xi’s speech came.

The speech was comprehensive and clear that China is fulfilling its pledge to build a common future with Africa, a shared future for mankind.

The Chinese president clarified that China-Africa cooperation would be in line with the UN 2030 Agenda, African Union Agenda 2063 and the Belt and Road Initiative.

There is no doubt that the Chinese President’s announcement in Johannesburg 2015 FOCAC last summit with the 10 major cooperation plans with $60 billion in investments were a more-than-successful experience. That encouraged President Xi to re-establish the experience so as to move the relations between China and Africa to a new high.

After the first 10 plans paved the way for an African breakthrough towards the development of infrastructure, construction of industrial communities and an agricultural renaissance, the new plan came to complement the construction of the first one and further encourage China to produce and export not only raw materials but also industrial and agricultural products to Africa.

President Xi has pledged eight initiatives accompanied with a fund of $ 60 billion that are the working plans for the next three years of unprecedented cooperation between China and Africa.

These eight initiatives include industrial promotion, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, green development, capacity building, healthcare, people-to-people exchange and peace and security.

China has responded to the demands of African leaders to open up more Chinese markets to African goods and bring more income to African countries from their exports to China. President Xi announced $ 5 billion in financing for the imports from Africa.

We note in this speech that the speech came to one family full of trust and safety. Now that China has been more confident in its relations with Africa, so have African leaders. The parties have demonstrated their commitment to building a strong relationship based on mutual respect and the common interest of building a common, prosperous future for all.

It is clear that the relationship is not only a relationship of interests, but also a profound, comprehensive relationship based on China’s understanding of the African continent, its needs and priorities.

China is now seeking to help solve the problems of the continent in terms of health, education and the development of African export capacity, and above all to achieve security and stability.

Fruitful results have been achieved during the summit

Egypt signs $18 Billion worth of contracts with Chinese investors. The contracts include the construction of the world’s biggest power plants in Al-Hamrawein region on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, which will be powered by clean coal technology, and with a production capacity of 6,000 Megawatts, stage two of central operations in the new Administrative Capital, the construction of a petrochemical refinery plant in the Suez canal zone, and a pumping and storage plant in Ataqa Mountain.

Ghana signs eight co-operation agreements that include the “One Belt, One Road Memorandum of Understanding”, “Memorandum on Regional Aviation Co-operation”, “Agreement for Co-operation in the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy”, and “Co-operation to Carry out Maternal and Child Health Project”. The rest are: “Framework Agreement on Financing Insurance Co-operation” (a $2 billion Sinohydro deal), “Economic Co-operation on Phase 2 Project of the University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho”, “Co-operation on the Expansion of the Cape Coast Stadium, and Co-operation on the Supply of Police Vehicles to the Ghana Police Service”.

Nigeria signs the MoU on the One Belt One Road Initiative (OBOR, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative), another different 25 MoUs, $328 million agreement on the National Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure Backbone Phase 11 between Galaxy Backbone Limited and Huawei Technologies Limited (HUAWEI).

Somalia signs MOU with China to join the Belt and Road .

The most important thing in President Xi‘s speech was his focus on the relationship between the peoples because the relationship between peoples is the only one capable of making all projects and investments succeed and to establish roots that no one can uproot.

Finally, the satisfaction and happiness of all African leaders at this summit was clear, because they were all sure of the sincerity of China’s intentions and its great ability to provide much of what the African continent needs.

The author is the First Economist Researcher at the Central Department for Export and Import Policy of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Industry