WINDHOEK: Chinese Ambassador to Namibia, Xin Shunkang said the relationship between his country and Namibia have developed comprehensively with the expansion of bilateral and economic cooperation in both scope and depth.
He was speaking during China’s 63th anniversary celebrations here on Tuesday.
“Our exchanges in education, health, culture and other fields are bearing fruits. Our communications on international and regional issues have been close,” he noted.
Xin, who succeeded Wei Ruixing two months ago, said his government has provided US dollars 20 billion in loans to Africa to support infrastructure, agriculture, manufacture and the small and medium enterprise (SME) sectors.
“This will certainly give a strong push to the China-Africa New Strategic Partnership,” according to Xin.
For three years in a row, China has been Africa’s biggest trading partner, with total trade volumes worth US dollars 166.3 billion in 2011.
Africa’s exports to China doubled during the past three years in steel, copper, fertilisers and other finished industrial products from Africa.
More and more agricultural products from Africa are now available on the Chinese markets, said Xin.
China has directly invested over US dollars 15 billion in Africa, and Chinese companies are operating in 50 African countries, while more than 85 per cent of their staff is African.
“During the world financial crisis, we did not decrease but instead increased our assistance to Africa. This assistance has been targeted to improve the well-being of the people, poverty reduction, disaster preparedness and mitigation, and capacity-building,” he stressed.
Since the 2006 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Summit, China has built over 100 schools, 30 hospitals, 30 anti-malaria centres and 20 agricultural technology demonstration centres in Africa, and trained over 30 000 African personnel in various sectors.
In July this year during the 5th Ministerial Conference of FOCAC, the Chinese Government announced a US dollars 20 billion loan to support infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing and the SME sectors in Africa.
This year, China implemented its 12th Five-Year Plan in full force, targeting economic innovation and strategic restructuring, to increase huge domestic demand and to improve people’s livelihoods.
Xin said that for the first half of this year, China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased by 7.8 per cent, which is due to the contribution to the recovery of the world’s economy.
“It is our belief that China’s development is not only to benefit the Chinese people but also to benefit others, the African people in particular,” he added.