China Calls for World Aid to African Development

Home>>World

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, September 17, 2002

China Calls for World Aid to African Development

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

China on Monday called on the international community, especially the industrialized countries, to meet their obligation and bring concrete assistance to Africa to boost its development and fight against such diseases as HIV/AIDS.

The appeal came as Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan was addressing a high-level General Assembly meeting on how to support "The New Partnership for Africa's development" (NEPAD).

"The state of peace and development in Africa has its profound and complicated historical and practical reasons and is largely due to the many unfair and unreasonable factors in the current international political and economic order," he said.

"The international community, especially the developed countries, have the responsibility and obligation to adopt more active and effective measures to reform the existing international economic, trading and financing systems, as to create a sound international environment for the economic development of African countries," he said.

The Monterrey Consensus of the International Conference on Financing for Development, held in March in Mexico, calls in explicit terms for an increase of development funds and the elimination of extreme poverty.

The just-concluded World Summit on Sustainable Development, convened in South Africa, has also reiterated the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities."

"All countries in the world have an obligation to translate the political will as expressed at the above meetings into concrete actions and turn the commitment into reality," he said.

"In the process of the implementation of NEPAD, the international community, developed countries in particular, should fully respect African countries' own choice and reverse the trend of declining development assistance as soon as possible," he said.

"They should work to ensure that their official development assistance account for 0.7 percent of their GNP (gross national product) and should reduce or cancel the debts of African countries, expand and improve the market access for African countries and transfer applicable technologies to Africa," he said.

"They should also help African countries to combat diseases, including HIV/AIDS, in a joint effort to protect African human resources from the damaging effect of diseases," he added.

China backs African countries to achieve development

China on Monday voiced its support for African countries in their unremitting efforts to achieve all objectives in NEPAD.

Tang Jiaxuan told that "We support African countries in their unremitting efforts to achieve all NEPAD objectives in the light of their needs and actual conditions to realize Africa's renaissance."

In July, the First Summit of the African Union decided to incorporate NEPAD into its framework, thus making NEPAD an important document in the process of African development and providing an institutional guarantee for the gradual implementation of NEPAD, Tang said.

"China has for long maintained a good and cooperative relationship with African countries and is following closely the progress of Africa," he said. "Strengthening cooperation with African countries for a common development is an important component of China's foreign policy."

As a developing country, China has, within the context of South-South cooperation, initiated and successfully hosted the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation -- Ministerial Conference Beijing 2000 and established relevant follow-up mechanisms, he noted.

"We have begun to cancel 10 billion yuan worth of African countries' debts to China as we had promised," he said. "Follow-up actions in the technical and economic cooperation and many other fields are also in progress," he said.

"The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and NEPAD share the same objective of promoting cooperation and common development," he said. "We believe that the active implementation of the forum's follow-up activities by China and Africa will be a strong boost to the process of African development and NEPAD."

Questions?Comments? Click here

China Values Ties with African Countries: FM

China Hopes to See Iraqi Issue Resolved Within UN Framework ( 17 Messages)

Scholar Slates Chen Shui-bian Pro-"independence" Speeches ( 5 Messages)

Survey Discloses Bad Service of Domestic Banks ( 60 Messages)

Dozens Could Have Died in Food Poisoning in Nanjing ( 3 Messages)

China Since 1990: Facts and Figures Tell of Rising Prosperity ( 5 Messages)