FOCAC - President Buhari In Bilateral Meeting With Chinese President Xi Jinping

The FOCAC meets every three years since its inaugural meeting in Beijing in 2000. China is the top trade partner for Africa with some $222 billion of goods and services changing hands between Chinese and African traders in 2014. Well, President Buhari has met with Chinese president Xi Jinping at a China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 4 December

It would be recalled that Muhammadu Buhari and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have already discussed bilateral cooperation and upgrading the two countries’ strategic partnership during the last General Assembly of the United Nations, in New York, on Septemeber 27 this year.

A statement by the presidential spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina, stated that during the meeting in New York, President Buhari had indicated to Xi Jinping that 

“he wanted China to re-commence stalled rail projects under new terms that would see China providing nearly all the financing required.”

The statement also added that 

“of particular interest is the coastal railway project stretching for 1402 kilometres linking Lagos in the West with Calabar in the East; a project that is expected to be financed with 12 billion U.S Dollars Chinese loan and which will create about 200,000 jobs.”

Outside from railways, President Buhari is also expected to discuss ways of kick-starting the 3,050 MW Mambila Power Station, considered to be a strategic project initiated in 1982 but has not taken off. The Chinese President also expressed the willingness of his country to finance the whole project through a special loan agreement.

President Buhari, who was accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyema; Minister of Transportation, Chubuike Amaechi; and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, would return to Abuja today being Saturday, December 5.

Many other African countries have also benefited hugely from Chinese foreign aid in recent decades. Though China is secretive about its foreign aid activities, it reportedly funds more than 2,500 development projects across 51 African states, worth a combined total of approximately $94 billion.