Beijing, now showing early autumn after the summer heat, will host the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a briefing that the summit is expected to achieve results in four areas: issuing a new call to build an even closer China-Africa community with a shared future, composing a new chapter of Belt and Road synergy with Africa's development, formulating a new path for China-Africa cooperation to move toward a higher level, and sounding a new melody of the Chinese and African peoples being linked heart to heart and as close as one family. These four areas concern the direction, content, path and foundation of China-Africa cooperation. Their core is the synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative and Africa's development strategies, and all of them are built around and run through the character "new."
Since the Chinese government proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, the African continent, with its rich resources, huge market potential and strong demand for infrastructure construction, has also actively participated in Belt and Road development. In the process, it has experienced and seized important historical development opportunities in order to achieve leapfrog development of its economy from a pre-industrial society to full industrialization. At the same time, economic and trade cooperation has become the foundation and driving force of China-Africa relations and has become ever more closely integrated into China's development strategy as an indispensable and important link. In the first half of 2017, the Africa Investment Attractiveness Report noted that since 2005 China had invested in 293 projects in Africa, and that in 2016 jobs created in Africa by Chinese investment were more than three times those created by the United States. Under the Belt and Road Initiative, China has brought more and more major projects to countries along the routes, effectively promoting local economic and social development, increasing employment and improving people's livelihoods. Africa's largest free trade zone, managed with the participation of a Chinese company, began construction in early July; Ethiopia's first national industrial park officially began operations; and the Doraleh Multipurpose Port project in Djibouti was successfully completed. No wonder Djiboutian President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh remarked during his visit to China last November: "The Westerners came for more than 100 years, and our country is still so poor. The Chinese came for only three years, and they have brought such great changes to our country and given us hope."
This hope for development stems from the new development momentum brought by the Belt and Road Initiative. In recent years, infrastructure construction and industrial park development—the "one body, two wings" of China-Africa production capacity cooperation—have unfolded vigorously across the African continent. China-Africa cooperation has been further deepened, a series of major cooperation projects between the two sides have progressed smoothly, and they have "blossomed and borne fruit" in many fields. China has helped Africa build multiple railways, including the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway linking the Kenyan port city of Mombasa to the capital Nairobi, the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway linking Ethiopia's capital to Djibouti, and railways built in Angola and Nigeria. As Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on May 31, 2017, the day the Mombasa-Nairobi railway opened, "the opening of the railway has laid the foundation for Kenya's new chapter of industrialization." In the year of steady and safe operation since then, the Mombasa-Nairobi railway has carried more than 1.3 million passengers and over 60,000 containers of freight, created nearly 50,000 jobs in Kenya, trained more than 5,000 skilled technical workers and operations management personnel, and enabled more than 100 Kenyan students to study railway undergraduate programs in China. The railway has also greatly facilitated personnel exchanges between Nairobi and Mombasa, shortened cargo transport time from more than 10 hours to just over 4 hours, and reduced logistics costs by more than 40 percent. Railway construction has also boosted Kenya's GDP growth by 1.5 percent or even 2 percent and spurred the formation of commercial activities along the railway and the development of the entire industrial chain, including ports.
The construction of infrastructure connectivity is intended to lay the foundation for and safeguard China-Africa industrialization cooperation. In 2015, among the "Ten China-Africa Cooperation Plans" totaling US$60 billion proposed by President Xi Jinping at the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China-Africa industrialization cooperation was placed in the primary and prominent position, and a "China-Africa Production Capacity Cooperation Fund" with initial funding of US$10 billion was specially established for this purpose. According to Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming at a State Council Information Office briefing on the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation on August 28, according to incomplete statistics, Chinese enterprises have established about 25 economic and trade cooperation zones in Africa, attracting more than 400 Chinese-funded enterprises and with cumulative investment exceeding US$6 billion, covering energy and minerals, light industry and building materials, textile manufacturing, household appliances and other fields. At present, the output value of these economic and trade cooperation zones is about US$18.9 billion, they have paid US$900 million in taxes to host countries, and they employ about 41,000 foreign workers, greatly promoting Africa's economic development. By the end of 2017, China's stock of various types of investment in Africa had exceeded US$100 billion, and more than 3,500 Chinese enterprises had invested and operated in Africa. These Chinese-funded enterprises based in Africa are starting businesses anew on African soil, opening up new space for Africa's development and for their own transformation.
At present, the "two-wheel drive" model of "infrastructure construction plus industrial park development" vigorously promoted by China is boosting Africa's economic development and turning Africa's resource and energy endowments into achievements in sustainable development that benefit people's livelihoods. We have reason to believe that the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in September will become an important milestone for the Belt and Road Initiative joining hands with Africa. Just as Djibouti has the determination and hope to transform itself from barren land into a global trade and logistics center through the development of a free trade zone, the Belt and Road Initiative will help African countries compose a new chapter of development.