China, African countries sign 28 infrastructure cooperation projects

(ECNS) -- China and multiple African countries signed 28 infrastructure cooperation projects during the China-Africa infrastructure cooperation exchange event held on Thursday in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, with the total contract value amounting to $5.27 billion.

The projects encompass various forms of cooperation, including China's contracted projects in Africa, commercial contracts for engineering-related investments, framework agreements, and strategic cooperation agreements.

They cover infrastructure collaboration in transportation, energy, telecommunications, water resources, industry, and agriculture across African countries such as Ethiopia, Angola, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Uganda, Morocco, South Africa, Guinea, Togo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Official data shows that China has built and upgraded over 10,000 kilometers of railways, over 100,000 kilometers of roads, nearly 1,000 bridges and 100 ports, and over 200,000 kilometers of power and telecommunication networks across Africa within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.

As China-Africa economic and trade cooperation grows increasingly closer, infrastructure collaboration between the two sides is expanding from traditional transportation and energy projects to new frontiers such as digital infrastructure and ecological engineering.

China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), which participated in the Addis Ababa Riverside Green Development Project in Ethiopia, transformed a heavily polluted and garbage-strewn riverbank into Africa's most functional and largest urban comprehensive plaza, setting a benchmark for ecological restoration in the region.

Tunisia's Minister of Trade and Export Development, Samir Abid, said Chinese enterprises are ideal partners to realize the vision of the Gateway to Africa project, a continental trade corridor that will connect Tunisia and Libya to sub-Saharan Africa.

The second expressway in Ghana was constructed with the participation of Chinese enterprises, said Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini, deputy minister of Ghana's Ministry of Roads and Highways. He said the country is looking forward to deepening cooperation with Chinese companies in advancing a regional connectivity project linking cities, including Lagos of Nigeria.

(By Zhang Dongfang)