China to continue assisting African countries

Yang, who was wrapping up a visit to South Africa, stressed the need for China and Africa to boost co-operation in coping with the international financial crisis.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting on Friday, 16 January, 2009 with his counterpart Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Yang said he believed that it was very important for the two countries to work hard to develop Africa.

The two ministers met outside Cape Town to strengthen ties between the two countries in their fourth encounter in the past 12 months.

Talks between the two nations focused on economics and changing global dynamics.

Yang said: "Like China, Africa is also a victim of the financial crisis so China and African countries should work together. First of all we should share information with each other and we should compare notes on how we look at the overall picture and where things are going."

He also called on the two countries to make joint efforts in dealing with the financial crisis and contribute to global economic stability.

"I believe, we should have very good co-ordination during international meetings to ensure that the meetings will lead to positive, important results which will benefit the maintenance of the growth trend in the world, to ensure that there is still enough input into development, to ensure that the international financial system will be reformed in such a way to benefit the developing countries," Yang told the media briefing.

The foreign minister said China was willing to step up exchanges and coordination with South Africa on international and regional issues, and promote mutually beneficial economic and trade co-operation.

"We believe that Africa should be well represented in international financial meetings. It is a very important voice which needs to be heard and respected."

China and South Africa have witnessed rapid development of their strategic co-operative partnership in recent years.

"The past decade has been very good and we are now planning for the second decade in our relations and we are confident that the second decade will be even better because we have learnt lots of lessons and laid a good foundation so we are ready to take off in the next decade," said Dlamini-Zuma.

She assured her Chinese counterpart that the general elections were unlikely to change the country's political scene.

"New parties have emerged but still we think at the end of elections nothing will change much," Dlamini-Zuma told Yang.

Yang was in South Africa on his final leg of a four-country visit to the continent. For over a decade now, China's foreign minister has begun the new year with a visit to Africa. This year, Yang visited Uganda, Rwanda and Malawi, along with his return visit to South Africa.

His visit aims to strengthen relations with African countries, as China seeks to further extend its influence on the resource-rich continent in a relationship that has often drawn criticism from the West.

China has extended billions of dollars in loans towards infrastructure development among others to countries such as Sudan which have poor human rights records, obtaining huge oil and gas deals.

South Africa is China's key trading partner in Africa, accounting for 20.8% of the total volume of China-Africa trade in 2007.

Article published courtesy of BuaNews