The 7th annual summit of the forum on China_African Cooperation, FOCAC, opens in Beijing, China Monday and ends Tuesday, September 4th.
African leaders are participating fully at the summit. They include the Presidents of Egypt, Nigeria, Gabon, Cote D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Senegal,South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Cameroon.
Also present is the UN Secretary General Gutierrez.
The theme of this year’s FOCAC Beijing Conference -Towards an even stronger China-Africa Community with a shared Future – is significant.
It underscores growing Chinese investments in Africa’s infrastructure and the continent’s future development.
Nigeria’s president Buhari’s engagement on arrival in Beijing at the weekend was an interactive session with the Nigerian Community in China at the Nigerian embassy.
Roundtable sessions would be the key aspects of Monday’s summit meeting.
Our correspondent writes “China’s increasing investment profile on the African continent attracts mostly negative reactions from the Western media, some calling it a new colonialism. But is it?
Obviously, African leaders don’t agree. Total Chinese investments in African infrastructure now exceeds $40 billion. They include a modern, standard guage railway linking Mombasa in Kenya to Nairobi, which is planned to cross national borders and extend to Kigali in Rwanda. There is also the railway linking Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia to the Indian Ocean port of Djibouti”
Elsewhere,among other critical projects, our correspondent adds that “while the United States extend sanctions against Zimbabwe, the Chinese build an airport at the Victoria Falls tourist Centre and renovate the Harare airport, deepening strategic bi-lateral relations”