CHINESE FIRMS TAKE LEAD IN 86 AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIPS

The Chinese government has already signed 101 cooperation agreements with 86 countries and international organisations, in its bid to ensure the concept of Belt and Road Initiative, a multibillion dollar project which envisages to benefit Tanzania and other East Africa nations becomes reality.

This was revealed on Tuesday by the country’s National Development and Reforms Commission, in a report delivered at the ongoing session of the 13th National People’s Congress held in Beijing.

Apart from Tanzania, the Chinese also work with Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Egypt and other African countries that will di-rectly benefit from the corridor project, spanning 68 countries and covering over 60 per cent of the world’s population.

The project, a brainchild of Chinese President Xi Jinping was officially launched in 2013, focusing on infrastructure investment in countries along the old Silk Road, linking it with a network of countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.

The initiative aims at enhancing the orderly free-flow of economic factors and efficient resource allocation. “The Belt and Road Initiative has received a positive response and support from over 100 countries and international organisations...we have also signed independent cooperation agreements,” the report says.

It further revealed that the East Africa’s Mombasa-Nairobi railway, part of this initiative, has already been completed and is currently in service. The government of China maintains that it issued the general plan for providing financial support for the BRI, helping speed up the development of multi-tiered support system for investment.

The report further notedthat the East Asian economic giant has promoted person to person and cultural exchange and cooperation by completing over 40 agreements on science and technology cooperation and over 300 action plans on cultural exchange with BRI-involved countries.

“So far, we have established 35 overseas Chinese cultural centres, 140 confucius institutes and 135 confucius classrooms as well as 16 overseas traditional Chinese medicine centres and set up 45 international laboratories and research centres,” it noted.

Available records show that Chinese investments related to the BRI have totalled 60 billion USD since 2013 and is likely to soar, with between 600 and 800 billion US dollar investments planned for the next five years.

Daily News Reporter in Beijing