Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso (right) and his wife Antoinette (second right) welcome China’s new President Xi Jinping (second left) and and his wife Peng Liyuan on arrival at Brazzaville’s Maya-Maya Airport.
BRAZZAVILLE: China’s new President Xi Jinping yesterday signed deals worth several million dollars with his Congolese counterpart in sectors as varied as banking and infrastructure, on the final leg of his three-nation Africa tour.
His visit to Tanzania, South Africa and now the Republic of the Congo underscores Beijing’s growing presence in the resource-rich continent.
Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan were greeted by President Denis Sassou Nguesso on their arrival in the capital Brazzaville yesterday, as well as several thousand Congolese wearing T-shirts emblazoned with images of the two leaders, dancing under a blazing sun.
Xi said that he hoped to “deepen mutual understanding and friendship (with the Republic of the Congo) and lift bilateral ties to a new and higher level”, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The two leaders signed 11 deals worth several million dollars after Xi arrived for his two-day visit, the first by a Chinese president to the impoverished country of four million with significant oil resources.
The accords cover projects in a number of areas including communications, infrastructure and banking. They build on two further accords worth several billion dollars already under way, one of which will finance the building of more than 500km of highway between Brazzaville and the economic capital on the Atlantic Coast, Pointe-Noire.
China is already Congo’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade ballooning to $5bn in 2012 from $290m in 2002, according to Xinhua. Xi’s African tour, part of his first presidential trip that began in Russia, has also taken him to Tanzania and South Africa.
China’s business boom and its rise to become the world’s second-largest economy has seen financial and trade ties rocket in recent years as it sources many of its raw materials from Africa.
But ahead of Xi’s visit to Congo, many expressed doubt that he will bring job opportunities with him, as Chinese companies that set up shop in Africa often bring their workers with them. Xinhua said however that more than 85 percent of the staff of some 2,000 Chinese companies operating in 50 African countries are Africans.
In South Africa, Xi attended the summit of the BRICS group of emerging economic powers — Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa — at which they agreed to launch a new development bank while failing to set up an infrastructure fund. AFP
