China pledges $10 billion USD in loans to Africa

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met a group of African leaders at a forum Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss another round of aid after the $5 billion USD China has offered in the past three years.

At the meeting, Wen promised a package of $10 billion USD in concessional loans to African countries, aiming to help them build up "financing capabilities." China will provide another $1 billion USD especially to help small and medium sized businesses, reports Agence France Presse. "China is ready to deepen practical cooperation in Africa," Wen said at the two-day Forum on China-Africa Cooperation opened today, adding it will also remove 95 percent of products from the least-developed African countries that have diplomatic relationships with China. New investments include 100 clean energy projects, cultural exchanges and medical assistance, said Wen. In 2006, China signed agreements to relieve or cancel debts of 31 African countries. The Sino-Africa relationship can be dated back to the 1950s, when China supported liberation movements in the continent to fight against colonial rule. In 2008, trade between Africa and China surpassed $100 billion USD, soaring from $10 billion USD in 2000. Over the past five years, Chinese direct investment in Africa has aggressively surged to $7.8 billion USD in 2008 from $491 million USD in 2003, according to the Chinese government. But China's generosity towards Africa has long been a target among western critics, who condemned China for supporting local governments with little regard to human rights as a mean to get the region's rich resources. A typical example is China's stance on Darfur issue; the local Sudanese government has killed more than 300,000 people in a six-year conflict in Sudan's Darfur region with weapons imported from China. At the forum, Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir, who got a warrant in March this year from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes, thanked China for its diplomatic role in Sudan.