China urges Malawi to provide economic plan
The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission has called on the Malawi Government to submit the country’s economic plan to enable the Chinese Government effectively support the development agenda.
Speaking to a group of Malawian journalists in Beijing yesterday, Deputy Director in the Department of Foreign Capital and Overseas Investment, Qiu Yuliang, said countries have different demands and resources and Malawians need to avail their needs before China comes in.
Yuliang said Malawi should submit some focus areas which require cooperation with China and ought to be improved in the cooperation with the Asian nation.
“And then in that area, the companies can do much more solid business studies for them to put some solid products. If you have your national economic plan, you can provide it to us by studying your country’s economic status, future plan, objectives, which you may have a better idea of, and what we can focus on and direct our future cooperation.
“And if you have a similar body as National Development and Reform Commission, we would like to directly talk with that department, which is responsible for your country’s development policy, to cooperate with China in the development of production capacity to make our cooperation more fruitful,” Yuliang said.
He said China is taking step by step and one country after another in the implementation of December 2015 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Johannesburg Action Plan and although Malawi may not be in the first year but is one of the countries earmarked for production improvement in the next two years.
Yuliang said China has already built several platforms for investment cooperation in several African countries such as Ethiopia, Egypt and South Africa and what she is doing now is to combine the African countries’ growth strategy.
“Take Ethiopia, for example. Ethiopia has grown at a very high rate, that is double digits for the past eleven years and the Ethiopian Government has made a growth strategy for the next five years. They have laid out several areas of focus in growth for the next five years such as industries, manufacturing building material and high-tech such as telecommunication.
“ So this is the area they are focusing on and what we are doing is to combine the Ethiopian government strategy and provide them with Chinese companies with a lot of experience to go to Ethiopia and see those focus areas so that they can find the business opportunities in that country,” he said.
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