IV. Follow-up Actions of Second Ministerial Conference

    All follow-up actions have been taken successfully since the end of the Second Ministerial Conference of the FOCAC, thanks to the concerted efforts of China and African countries.

    1. Mutual trust and cooperation in political arena have been furthered.   

    Exchanges between high-level officials have risen to a new height. Since early 2004, 19 presidents, eight prime ministers, three vice presidents and 21 foreign ministers from African countries have visited China. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing visited six African countries earlier this year. For 16 straight years Chinese foreign ministers chose Africa as their first overseas visit destination. President Hu Jintao visited Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya in April; Premier Wen Jiabao visited Egypt, Ghana, the Congo, Angola, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda in mid-June. These concentrated high-level visits have fully demonstrated that leaders of both sides pay close attention to inheriting and carrying forward the traditional China-Africa friendship.

    The Chinese Government has always given top priority to the development of friendly China-African relations in its relations with other countries. In January this year, the Chinese Government issued an official paper titled "China's African Policy." In the document, it expressed the intention to form and develop a new type of strategic partnership with Africa, which would feature equality and mutual trust politically, win-win and cooperation economically and exchanges and drawing on each other culturally. It is for the first time that the Chinese Government issued a policy paper governing a continent. This showed China’s sincere wish and firm resolve in the new situation to expand and deepen China-Africa cooperation in all areas, so as to elevate such cooperation to an even higher level.

    China and African countries have continued to maintain close consultations and cooperation in international affairs. In multilateral arenas such as the United Nations, China has supported, as always, Africa's reasonable propositions and paid close attention to its concerns. It has never been hesitant to speak out for Africa on issues relevant to its legitimate rights and interests. It sent a 435-member peacekeeping troop to a UN peacekeeping mission in the Sudan in late May. To date, it has joined seven UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, with 1,295 Chinese soldiers working as peacekeepers in Africa.

    The furthering of political exchanges and cooperation between China and Africa has laid a solid political foundation for the development of the China-Africa Forum and the smooth implementation of the follow-up actions.

    2. China-African economic and trade cooperation continues to maintain robust growth

    In 2005, China-African trade hit a record of 39.74 billion U.S. dollars, 34.9 percent higher than in the previous year. China’s trade deficit was 2.4 billon dollars. China has attached great importance to the problem of the trade deficit of some African countries with China and has taken measures to encourage imports from Africa.

  In line with its commitment, China has exempted tariffs on 190 imported items from the least developed African countries. Now 28 African countries enjoy this preferential treatment. Customs statistics show that the value of goods imported from Africa entitled to this preferential treatment reached 380 million dollars in 2005, a year-on-year increase of 87.8 percent, 53 percentage points higher than the growth of China’s imports from Africa during the same period. This indicates that China’s preferential policy has benefited African countries.

Progress has been made in China’s investment in Africa. Preliminary statistics show that by the end of 2005, China’s accumulative direct investment in Africa had reached 1.18 billion dollars and China had set up 800 enterprises in Africa. Its investment projects cover 49 African countries and involve a host of areas such as trade, production and processing, resource development, transportation, telecommunications and agriculture.

    In addition, China continues to provide assistance for African countries to the best of its financial capability and has undertaken infrastructure projects such as road and hospital construction, urban water supply and housing construction, in a bid to help African countries achieve economic and social development.

    Since 2005, the Chinese Government has also provided emergency humanitarian aid, medicines and grain to African countries hit by drought, epidemic diseases and insect plagues. 

    3. Progress has been made in China-Africa cooperation in social development.

     Ever since the second ministerial conference, China has trained about 7,600 African professionals of various types. The trainees included government officials and technical personnel. Training involved such contents as administration, economic management, medical care and health, network communications, agricultural techniques, consulate protection, and education and environmental protection.

    In 2006, China plans to train about 3,000 African professionals in different areas. As the matter stands now, China will over-fulfill the promise of Premier Wen to train 10,000 African personnel within three years.

    Sino-African cooperation in education has been furthered. The China-Africa Ministers of Education Forum was held in Beijing on Nov. 27, 2005, with ministers of education from 17 African countries present. The ministers held dialogues on the topic of “China-Africa strategy on the development of education and international exchanges and cooperation.”

    The Chinese side pledged to double in the next five years the number of African students who receive scholarships from the Chinese Government; to train 1,000 African educational officials and teachers per year from 2006 to 2008; and to promote academic exchanges and teaching of the Chinese language in Africa. These are successful practices pursued by China and Africa on multilateral educational cooperation, within the framework of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum.

 In the second half of 2005, Namibia, Botswana, Madagascar and Lesotho have become destination countries for Chinese citizens and tourist groups. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao declared that Ghana has become a destination country for Chinese citizens and tourist groups during his visit to Africa in June this year. So far, 17 African countries have become destinations for Chinese citizens and tourist groups. The cooperation in tourism between China and Africa not only benefits the development of the industry for both sides, but also enhances friendship and mutual understanding.

 China and Africa continue to carry out rich and diverse exchanges and cooperation in the field of culture. In 2004, an international cultural festival titled “Let’s Meet in Beijing” was held in Beijing with Africa serving as the host continent. Nine troupes of African artists from and government representatives from eight African countries took part in the event. They also held in Beijing an exhibition of art focusing on Africa. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended the closing ceremony of the exhibition and spoke highly of it.

 A series of cultural events showcasing modern China were held in 16 African countries in July 2004. Chinese State Councilor Chen Zhili attended the opening ceremony held in South Africa. Cultural troupes of acrobatics, martial art and Chinese song and dance staged performances in 11 African countries. A Chinese culture festival was held in South Africa, Cameroon and Ghana. Bilateral exchanges are brisk in literature, movies, archaeology and museums.

 The first group of 12 young Chinese volunteers arrived in Ethiopia in August 2005, where they offered local residents services for half a year. This new move turned out to be successful. The Ethiopian Government fully affirmed the performance of these young people. So, a good beginning was made in young volunteers working in Africa. The second China-Africa Youth Festival was held in China in August 2006. All these events including young volunteers and youth festival are expected to increase exchanges between African and Chinese youths in the future.

 In the multilateral arena, success has been scored in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). China attaches importance to and supports NEPAD. it has cooperated with African countries within the framework of the forum through bilateral channels in education, agriculture, human resource development, infrastructure construction, and prevention and treatment of infectious diseases and other priority areas set by NEPAD. As a result, cooperation has turned out to be successful. 

    Chinese Premier Jiaobao met the chief executive of NEPAD during his visit to South Africa in June 2006. He announced that the Chinese Government would aid NEPAD's nurses and midwives training programs in Tanzania and Kenya.

 When a NEPAD secretariat delegation visited China In July 2006, the secretariat of the China's Follow-up Committee of FOCAC signed with NEPAD the "Memorandum on enhancing consultations and cooperation between the secretariat of China's Follow-up Committee of FOCAC and secretariat of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)", laying a solid foundation for the furthering of bilateral cooperation.