China Has Invested US$90m In Africa

A researcher, Mr Li Gehua, has said that China has a total of US$90 million investment in Africa and the figure is estimated to rise to US$500 million within the next five years. For now, he said, China�s focus was on an integrative partnership with Africa and that her partnership with the continent had become so embedded that it was practically impossible to do without each other. According to him, China is now the world�s holder of the largest foreign exchange reserves and statistics released in March, this year, by the People�s Bank of China indicated that the country had a total foreign exchange reserve of US$3.95 trillion. Mr Gehua is the immediate past President of the Research and Training Institute of State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) of the People�s Republic of China. He was speaking on ��China�s National Development Condition and Development�� at a seminar being attended by 20 selected journalists and managers from Ghana as part of China�s Human Resource Development Cooperation for its partner countries. The seminar, which is an initiative of SAPPRFT under the auspices of China's Ministry of Commerce, is being held with support from the Economic and Commercial Counsellor�s Office of the embassy of the People's Republic of China in Ghana. It is on the theme: �Improve Media Exchange, Promote win-win Co-operation�. The SAPPRFT past president, who is a renowned media practitioner said, the downgrading of the US economy had posed a serious risk factor to its foreign exchange reserve, claiming however that, the US had kept on assuring China that their reserves were safe. Effective development He challenged developing countries to endeavour to focus attention on other avenues that would eventually translate into effective development other than relying only on capitalism. Mr Gehua noted that the success story of the country as an emerging economic force was an ample vindication that capitalism was not the only credible option to national development. He insisted that the western world strongly believed that practising a free economy was the only way for countries around the world to deliver. But China, he said, had always held a different view and had proven their case as a result of their success story of rapid socio-economic development, without resorting to capitalism. �There are other ways of achieving enhanced development other than what the western world would want the whole world to believe�, Mr Gehua maintained. The success story of China, he said, had now challenged scholars from the western world to begin to research into how China was able to fast-track its socio-economic development.