African Union organ welcomes Chinese pledges at FOCAC Senegal conference

The Johannesburg-based African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa's Development (AUDA-NEPAD) welcomed the pledges made by China to help Africa with vaccines and investment as well as the adoption of four strategic documents.

The AUDA-NEPAD CEO Ibrahim Mayaki made the remarks on Wednesday at an online webinar to discuss the outcomes of the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held from Nov. 29 to 30 in Senegal.

The pledge of additional vaccine doses by China comes as a welcome move to show solidarity with Africa in its fight against the new variant of the coronavirus, known as Omicron, he said.

By Nov. 12, 2021, China had provided over 1.7 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to more than 110 countries and organizations, including 50 African countries and the AU Commission. China announced during the conference that it will provide another 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa to help achieve the African Union goal of vaccinating 60 percent of the African population by 2022.

"I have no doubt that the China-Africa relation is genuine. What we now need after some 20 plus years of FOCAC, is significant and quantum amounts of mass-scale investments that will transform all productivity sectors of African economies, effectively making Africa a significant global player just like China," said Mayaki.

During the conference, China announced, among others, that it will provide 10 billion U.S. dollars of trade finance to support African export. The country will also encourage its businesses to invest no less than 10 billion U.S. dollars in Africa in the next three years.

China will also undertake 10 industrialization and employment promotion projects for Africa, provide credit facilities of 10 billion dollars to African financial institutions, support the development of African small and medium-sized enterprises on a priority basis, and establish a China-Africa cross-border RMB center.

Mayaki also welcomed the adoption of the Dakar Declaration of the 8th Ministerial Conference of the FOCAC, the Dakar Action Plan (2022-2024), the China-Africa Declaration on Climate Change Cooperation, and the Prospects for China-Africa Cooperation by 2035 at the conference.