South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma has called for increased access for African-produced goods and services into the huge and lucrative Chinese market.
Speaking at the China-Africa Cooperation Forum in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Monday, he said he hoped the meeting will ”provide an opportunity to effectively tackle this issue and find common ground”.
Zuma said the forum offers an opportunity to discuss the active involvement of China in the rebuilding of Africa, in line with the objectives and programmes of the African Union.
”In our quest to achieve sustainable development and improve the quality of life, we welcome Chinese support of the objectives of the AU economic blueprint for Africa, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development [Nepad].
”Crucial for us is access to the huge Chinese market for African goods and services. We must emphasise that Africa offers a host of opportunities for interaction between China and Africa in a number of areas.”
One is within the agriculture sector, which is the backbone of most African economies.
”China has the expertise, resources and technology that would help to improve Africa’s agricultural infrastructure and output,” Zuma said.
Certain Nepad priority areas offer opportunities for partnership, he said, ”for example, infrastructure development, human resource development, prevention and treatment of communicable diseases, agriculture, development of information communications technology, and others”.
Zuma also called for ”continued cooperation between China and Africa in critical matters such as the reform of international organisations, especially the United Nations, to make it more representative of the world today”.
Also important is cooperation in tackling the World Trade Organisation system.
”The unity displayed during the Cancun trade negotiations within the G20+, of which China was a part, played a significant role in trying to get the meeting to meet its Doha commitments.”
This unity could prove a building block ”to mobilise support for a just international trading system”, Zuma said. — Sapa