Focac summit will help forge a closer community
TWO days ago, at the invitation of President Jacob Zuma, Chinese President Xi Jinping once again arrived in this beautiful rainbow nation for a state visit to South Africa. Today, Xi will co-chair the Sandton summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac) with Zuma.
This is President Xi’s second state visit to South Africa in three years. The two presidents had a fruitful meeting and witnessed the signing of a series of agreements. The visit is a great success, marking another milestone in the history of China-South Africa relations.
The two sides have further consolidated political mutual trust and traditional friendship, and reached new important consensus on co-operation in key areas, which will further promote the implementation of the five-to-10-year strategic programme for co-operation and the development of the comprehensive strategic partnership.
Today, the Focac summit opens at the Sandton Convention Centre. This is a historic event as it is the second summit of the forum following the 2006 Beijing summit, and the first summit to be held on African soil. The summit has chosen the theme “Africa-China Progressing Together: Win-Win Co-operation for Common Development”.
Leaders and representatives from 50 African member states of Focac as well as leaders of the African Union and other major international organisations will attend. Xi will comprehensively elaborate on China’s new visions, policies and measures to further strengthen ChinaAfrica solidarity and co-operation.
The summit will also adopt the Johannesburg Declaration and the Action Plan (2016-2018). In a word, this summit is destined to become a historic, grand event.
The summit will further synergise China and Africa’s respective development strategies. Currently, both China and Africa are at the crucial stage of development and have formulated ambitious development strategies. China has put forward two centenary goals and the CPC Central Committee has proposed the 13th five-year programme. The AU has adopted agenda 2063 and its first 10-year implementation plan. China and Africa are moving forward in the same direction. During the upcoming summit, leaders will discuss ways to further align China and Africa’s development strategies and map out the new blueprint for co-operation.
The summit will promote China-Africa practical co-operation. During the summit, China will announce new measures of co-operation with Africa for the next three years, which is both a tradition and a defining feature of Focac. These new measures will directly serve the development strategies of both sides.
Priority will be given to address two major bottlenecks constraining Africa’s development, namely the backward infrastructure and lack of professionals.
Moreover, China will focus on issues concerning African people’s well-being, like food, employment and health, and strengthen co-operation in such major areas as industrialisation, agricultural modernisation, infrastructure building, public health and poverty reduction, investment and trade facilitation, people-topeople exchanges, peace and security, and green development. I believe there will be many exciting highlights.
The summit will greatly promote southsouth co-operation. Africa is home to the largest number of developing countries and China is the largest developing country in the world. China-Africa co-operation follows the trend of world development and the collective rise of developing countries and will make a positive contribution to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Well begun is half done. I am fully confident that, just like President Xi’s state visit, the Focac summit will also be a great success. I believe China and Africa will forge an even closer community of shared future, shared interests and development.
Xuejun is ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to South Africa