By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Chinese President Xi Jinping will on the sidelines of the BRICS summit this week in South Africa, meet with African heads of state and government in a bid “to advance China-Africa cooperation in the new era”,
China’s ambassador to South Africa, Chen Xiaodong at the weekend announced during a press briefing that meeting will take place late on Thursday, the last day of the three-day summit holding between Aug. 22-24.
The day has been set aside for events involving the more than 70 countries invited as “friends” of the BRICS bloc.
The bloc challenging the dominance of the west consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and host of the summit, South Africa.
The Chinese leader will on Tuesday pay a state visit to South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria and later travel to Johannesburg for the summit.
This will be Xi’s fifth trip to South Africa since he became president in 2013.
The meeting comes barely a month after a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg, where Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with the 17 African heads of state who attended out of the 54 African countries invited.
Chen said Xi and African leaders will draw up a blueprint for cooperation to create jobs and improve livelihoods in Africa.
“The initiatives will be in line with the needs of Africa’s economic restructuring and upgrading,” he said.
Senegalese president Macky Sall, the current chairman of the Forum for China Africa Cooperation, African Union chair and Comoros President Azali Assoumani, and representatives from Africa’s eight regional economic communities will be at the summit in Johannesburg.
It is not clear yet how many heads of state will attend the BRICS summit, but South African officials said more than 70 had been invited.
While China has been actively pushing for the group’s expansion, its members have differed on the criteria for admission into the bloc’s membership.
Between 2000 and 2020, Chinese lenders, mostly state-owned banks, agreed to lend $160 billion to African countries, according to Boston University, and Chinese companies have also invested heavily in mining on the continent.
Loan commitments increased after Xi launched the “Belt and Road Initiative” in 2013 to fund infrastructure in developing countries, but then dropped from a peak of $28.4 billion in 2016 to $1.9 billion in 2020.
