2024-09-06 02:43:29
New Chinese investments in Africa: President Xi promises one million new jobs for the African continent. UN Secretary General warns of new debt burden.
China wants to expand cooperation with Africa and will provide a good 45 billion euros for this purpose. “China is ready to deepen cooperation with Africa in the areas of industry, agriculture, infrastructure, trade and investment,” announced President Xi Jinping on Thursday at the ninth China-Africa summit with representatives from 50 countries in Beijing.
The plan is to provide 210 billion (33 billion euros) of the total 360 billion yuan in the form of loans and to pay out at least 70 billion yuan (nine billion euros) in the form of investments by Chinese companies. The United Nations warned that borrowing money would fuel the debt crisis in Africa and that there was a risk of unrest.
Among industrialized countries, interest in partnerships with the world’s fastest-growing continent, which also offers large reserves of raw materials, is increasing. Just last November, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosted an Africa Summit in Berlin, which focused on investments in African countries.
China is the largest creditor of African countries and has so far largely rejected initiatives to reduce their debt. In Beijing, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Africa’s debt was unsustainable and was the cause of mass protests. He proposed reforms to what he called the unfair international financial architecture. Incentives are needed to provide liquidity to developing countries. In addition, medium and long-term ways out of the debt crisis must be sought.
President Xi proposed a China-Africa network that would provide land and sea routes and coordinated development. He called on Chinese entrepreneurs to get involved in Africa. Xi promised that the Chinese initiative would create one million jobs in Africa, whose total population is estimated at one billion people.
He promised 30 clean energy projects and offered to cooperate in the field of nuclear technology. The background is that in many African countries, low energy production is delaying industrialization. However, Xi did not repeat his promise made in Dakar in 2021 to purchase African goods worth 270.6 billion euros. He only promised to unilaterally expand market access.
At the Beijing summit, a three-year program was established for China and almost all African states. The exception is the small state of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, which has relations with Taiwan.