Upcoming summit expected to take Sino-Africa relations to new height: envoy

ADDIS ABABA - The upcoming summit of the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) due to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in early December, will take the Sino-Africa relations to a new height, La Yifan, Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia, said on Monday.

The summit, which is going to be held on the African continent for the first time since its establishment in 2000, will dwell upon important issues of cooperation between China and Africa.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is also expected to announce a three-year package for the cooperation with Africa in areas including industrialization, agriculture modernization and infrastructure development.

According to La, President Xi is going to meet with African leaders to discuss ways of expanding cooperation and relations between China and African countries.

Ambassador La told Xinhua that the summit is going to bring the friendly relationship and cooperation between China and African countries to a higher level.

"And of course, the priority areas include trade and investment, and also industrialization, manufacturing because they all give huge push to the economic development of African countries; that is not only limited to trade, investment and manufacturing. The priority areas also include, for example education, human resource development like the training for the benefit of African lovely school children across the continent," he noted.

The summit will also deliberate on health issues that China and Africa would further strengthen cooperation in fighting against contagious diseases and others, said the ambassador.

"Another subject is the climate change. We know Ethiopia for the moment is suffering food shortages as a result of climate changes. And this FOCAC summit is one of the areas that we talk about how to strengthen cooperation between developing countries," stated the ambassador.

China has initiated FOCAC in 2000 a platform to discuss ways of enhancing the overall cooperation and friendship between China and Africa.