African officials hail Sino-Africa partnership

Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-11 20:05:11|Editor: xuxin

ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) — African officials have hailed the Sino-Africa partnership and cooperation in different areas and under the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has sent a congratulatory message to the ongoing 32nd African Union summit here.

In his congratulatory message, President Xi expressed China's commitment and keen interest to cooperate with Africa, promoting the alignment of the joint construction of the Belt and Road with the implementation of global and regional development agendas as well as other development strategies of African countries.

Younouss Djibrine, Secretary General of Pan-African Postal Union (a specialized agency of AU), told Xinhua that African leaders meet with the Chinese president continuously to further strengthen the "very strong" cooperation forged between China and Africa on a win-win basis.

The Sino-Africa cooperation under the framework of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which primarily focuses on infrastructure development and connectivity, is pivotal for Africa's development and cooperation also in other sectors, especially postal and logistics services, Djibrine noted.

"Every year, or two years, our heads of states visit the President of China because China is providing a lot of cooperation, investment coming here in Africa to develop our infrastructure; infrastructure is the weakest part of our African development. We need infrastructure to fast-track our development," he said.

"We are the postal sector, we have major expectation on that modernization of infrastructure, it can assist also fast-track our development," he said, adding that postal service as a supply chain requires good roads and connectivity to effectively and efficiently facilitate transportation and delivery of merchandise, thereby facilitating import-export activities.

Speaking at the opening of the 32nd AU summit on Sunday, Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the AU Commission, hailed the AU-China cooperation as "unprecedentedly dynamic."

Reiterating that the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in September 2018 was remarkably successful, the Chairperson said the opening of an AU office in Beijing would obviously strengthen the multifarious and fruitful partnership forged between the two sides.