Chinese Minister in Central African Republic

By Eddyson Lugangwa Posted 08 January 2007 @ 01:31 pm EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

BANGUI (IBTimes.com) - Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing was set on Friday to sign a series of accords with the Central African Republic as part of seven-nation tour highlighting China's increasing interest in the African continent.

Since President Francois Bozize came to power here in 2003, Beijing has given the Central African Republic several million dollars in aid and credit to finance joint projects and also cover costs of public administration in this deeply poverty-stricken country which is facing a serious financial crisis.
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Li was meeting President Bozize later on Friday. The contents of the latest deals were not imediately known. China has already invested a great deal in the Central African Republic, especially in construction, and is involved in a number of joint cooperative ventures with the government here, covering particularly health, agriculture, stockbreeding, communications and trade.

A new 20,000-seat, 12bn CFA franc ($23.7mn) stadium in the capital Bangui built by China was inaugurated on December 30. Beijing last month accorded the Central African Republic credit and aid totalling 3.25bn CFA francs ($6.4mn) to finance joint projects.

This is the fifth leg of Li's African tour. He was set to continue Saturday to Eritrea in east Africa and later to Botswana. He has already been in Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Chad.

China's President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao each took separate trips to Africa in 2005, returning home with a slew of energy and other business deals.

Such deals have punctuated a recent Chinese courtship of Africa that culminated in a China-Africa summit in Beijing in November drawing top leaders from more than 40 African countries to the Chinese capital.
During the Beijing summit, Wen said China intended to more than double trade with Africa to 100 billion dollars a year by 2010.