PRETORIA, South Africa
Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet African heads of state on the sidelines of the BRICS summit next week “to advance China-Africa cooperation in the new era”, China’s ambassador to South Africa said on last week.
The meeting will take place
late on Thursday, the last day of the three-day summit, Chen Xiaodong told a
briefing. The day has been set aside for events involving the more than 70
countries invited as “friends” of the BRICS bloc, consisting of Brazil, Russia,
India, China and South Africa.
On Tuesday, Xi will pay a
state visit to South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria and later
travel to Johannesburg for the summit, in what will be his fifth trip to South
Africa since he became president in 2013.
China’s interactions with
African leaders will follow last month’s Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg,
where Russian President Vladimir Putin held court with the 17 African heads of
state who attended out of the 54 African countries invited.
Chen said Xi and African
leaders will draw up a blueprint for cooperation to create jobs and improve
livelihoods in Africa.
“The initiatives will be in
line with the needs of Africa’s economic restructuring and upgrading,” he said.
Senegalese president Macky
Sall, the current chair of the Forum for China Africa Cooperation, African
Union chair and Comoros President Azali Assoumani, and representatives from
Africa’s eight regional economic communities will attend.
It is not clear yet how many
heads of state will attend the Aug. 22-24 BRICS summit, but South African
officials said more than 70 had been invited.
While China has been actively
pushing for the group’s expansion, its members have differed on the criteria
for new member states.
Between 2000 and 2020, Chinese
lenders, mostly state-owned banks, agreed to lend $160 billion to African
countries, according to Boston University, and Chinese companies have also
invested heavily in mining on the continent.
Loan commitments soared after
Xi launched the “Belt and Road Initiative” in 2013 to fund infrastructure in
developing countries, but then dropped sharply from a peak of $28.4 billion in
2016 to $1.9 billion in 2020.
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