New Year, New Opportunities

last year has flown by and it is time to embrace 2019. Looking at the development of China-africa relations, 2018 was an important year, with many significant events taking place that have paved the way for future relations and encouraged both parties to move forward with optimism in 2019 and beyond. In 2018, we saw the completion of the implementation of measures put forward at the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in South Africa in late 2015; in addition, 2019 marks the beginning of the cooperation initiatives put forward at the FOCAC Beijing Summit, which will last until 2021, and even further.

China-africa cooperation is always carried out on a well-planned basis, and FOCAC is definitely an important framework to plan the cooperation. At the FOCAC Johannesburg Summit, China proposed 10 China-africa cooperation plans and appropriated $60 billion to support the plans. By the end of 2018, these plans had been completed and China-africa cooperation has reaped abundant fruits in various fields. Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce of China show that after the 10 plans were launched, China-built projects would help African countries add about 30,000 km of roads, increase ports’ throughput capacity by 85 million tons per year, augment power generation capacity of nearly 20,000 mw, enhance electricity transmission and distribution circuits by more than 30,000 km, and create nearly 900,000 jobs for local people. In addition, the 10 cooperation plans also witnessed hundreds of projects in African countries in areas such as agriculture, poverty alleviation and public health.

While boosting development of African countries in a sustainable way, these plans have helped Chinese enterprises and Chinese products find larger markets.

At the FOCAC Beijing Summit in September 2018, the Chinese Government put forward eight major initiatives. This package is the upgraded version of the 10 China-africa cooperation plans with more precise and targeted measures to ensure these initiatives are fully implemented. China again pledged $60 billion to support the implementation of the initiatives. In the coming three years, more projects, not only in infrastructure and trade, but also in people-to-people exchange, will be launched. More win-win cooperation will be seen in 2019 and beyond.

Another important event that happened in 2018 was launched by China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba. On October 31, Alibaba and the Rwandan Government jointly launched Alibaba’s Electronic World Trade Platform, also known as EWTP. Rwanda thus became the first African country to launch such a platform. On the platform, African small and medium-sized enterprises, and even individuals, can sell their products through Alibaba’s online marketplaces.

As the African proverb goes, “Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” Entering 2019, both China and Africa have made well-organized plans for the upcoming opportunities and challenges lying ahead on the road to building a China-africa community with a shared future.

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