China-U.K. Cooperation to Promote Trade in Africa

Weekly Mandarin Translation

The trilateral cooperation among China, Africa and the U.K. has the capacity to increase global public goods supply. China and the U.K. can bring their comparative advantages and resources to the joint program to better facilitate African development.

中英非洲三方合作，首先有利于更好地提供全球公共产品。同时，中国、印度等新兴国家与传统的援助方英国合作，可以互相借鉴提高，充分发挥互补性。

This article has been translated from Mandarin. Click here to read the original version on Jingji News.

China assists Africa in many of its development efforts; however, sometimes it needs some "guidance." The British would like to play this role in certain instances.

On April 2nd, China and the United Kingdom launched a joint cooperation project to explore the potential of enhancing the trade performance of African countries. "The Chinese and British governments and companies hope to solve the problem of poverty in African countries by promoting trade. The core issue is to encourage economic development and increase the employment rate," says U.K. Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening, in an interview with China's First Financial Daily.

She emphasized the importance of infrastructure construction in a meeting with Jiwei Lou, China's Minister of Finance. They discussed how to commit enough funds from the World Band to support the scaling up of infrastructure. The U.K. has rich experience in terms of how to apply the 'PPP' model on infrastructure growth. Chinese enterprises have supported various types of investment, including infrastructure-building programs in Africa.

Justine Greening also introduced a joint study program focusing on studying the development opportunities and potential development fields of four African countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa). The Institute of Development Studies of the U.K. and the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation will lead the research and unearth the most promising realms of development within each of these four countries.

Apart from the cooperation program, China and the United Kingdom also launched other joint development projects on issues such as agriculture, disaster management, public health, and sustainable development.

The China-U.K. joint cooperation program in Africa not only enables China to learn from the development experiences from countries which have a long history of foreign assistance and investment, but increase China's influence and role in global governance.

Article translated by Qiuyun Shang, Staff Intern for the Kissinger Institute at the Wilson Center.

Photo courtesy of Foreign and Commonwealth Office via Flickr Commons.