Chinese companies pioneer Africa’s reboot

From donating personal prevention equipment to training locals in pandemic prevention knowledge, Chinese companies have been helping African countries combat COVID-19 spread while assisting them to revive economies, representatives from the companies told the Global Times.

As Africa faces the onslaught of the pandemic, Chinese companies said it is their responsibility to help local people fight the disease, and they vowed to keep enhancing cooperation between China and African countries.

The comments were made as a key meeting between leaders from China and Africa is being held with a focus on fighting the coronavirus in Africa.

“China is the most capable among major economies to help Africa in its bid to reopen economy,” said Liu Haifang, an African studies expert with Peking University.

According to official data, China had been Africa’s biggest trade partner for the past 10 years, and more than 3,700 Chinese companies were operating Africa as of the end of 2018.

In West Africa’s Ghana, Chinese state-owned Sinohydro helped build a hydropower dam in north Ghana and explore a railway project near the country’s capital Accra. It has donated medical goods including masks and protective suits worth $150,000 to the local government, the company’s chief representative in Ghana,

Huang Guanghui, Global Times.

In Algeria, where China Railway Construction Corp is building nine projects, including a highway linking Amalou and Akbou and the Blida Rental Housing Project, 1,500 local employees who worked from home received their full salaries for four months after the country was locked down.

In Kenya, China Communications Construction Co built Standard Gauge Railway that connects the Kenyan capital Nairobi and the country’s largest port Mombasa.

The company said the railway transported some 41,000 20-foot equivalent units of cargo from April-May. Among those were 78 containers of medical goods and 2,936 containers of grain, which were badly needed in Africa.

The round-the-clock operation of the railway has reduced the risks for truck drivers.

Zhang Zhishi, general manager of Shandong Provincebased Huasheng Zhongtian, a leading pesticide machinery maker that sells a wide range of pesticide sprayers from those mounted on tractors to those manned by a single operator, told the Global Times that exports rose 30 percent year-onyear since the locust plague broke out late last year.

“We will be all-in to apply our pest control and epidemic control technologies to provide our African customers to triumph over the current difficulties,” Zhang said. told the