China plays key role in developing African infrastructure

As senior officials from China and African countries are gathering in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to prepare for the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation to be held on Nov. 8 to 9, African countries are heaping praises on China for the key role it has played in developing the continent's infrastructure.

Poor infrastructure, including roads, railways, electricity, waterways and air among others, has become one of the bottlenecks to Africa's rapid growth and development.

Most of the transportation systems the African countries are using were built in the colonial era and they have not changed much. The poor infrastructure in most African countries has had a negative impact on the continent's development.

African countries have already recognized that infrastructure is a prerequisite for increasing intra-African trade, internal circulation of people and goods but they lack the necessary money to invest in the sector.

At the African Union (AU) summit held at the beginning of this year, infrastructure development was high on the agenda. At the summit, African presidents cited poor infrastructure as one of the major obstacles in efforts to raise the quality of life of the continent's people.

In the past 50 more years, China has actively aided and participated in the infrastructure building in the continent. China has helped Africa construct more than 500 infrastructure projects, including more than 2,000 km of railways, more than 3,000 km highways and scores of stadiums across the continent.

The landmark projects of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, the Egyptian International Conference Center and the Port of Friendship in Mauritania among others are playing their important roles in the development of local economies.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, on behalf of the Chinese government, announced at the 2006 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) that China would further expand aid scale to Africa by 2009 so that the scale of aid to African countries could be increased by one fold more than in 2006.

China promised to set up 10 special agricultural technology demonstration centers in Africa and they are now all under construction.

China also promised to aid African countries in building 28 hospitals and 16 of them have been now under construction.

At the request of African countries, China promised to aid them in building 126 schools in rural areas, including building 96new schools and providing teaching equipment to 30 schools. The construction of 91 out of the 96 new schools will be completed by the end of 2009. The construction of the rest five will start at the end of 2009.

African countries and organizations have spoken highly of the role China has played in developing the continent's infrastructure and improving the quality of life of the African people.