President Xi Jinping delivers a speech during the opening session of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Friday. He announced $60 billion of assistance and loans for Africa, signaling China’s continuing commitment to the continent. China will also provide a total of $60 million in aid to the African Union to improve Africa’s peacekeeping ability, and offer 1 billion yuan ($156 million) of emergency food aid to the countries hit by El Nino. Photo: AFP

 
President Xi Jinping proposed Friday that China and Africa lift their relationship to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, calling for joining hands to open a new era of common development.

Upgrading the relationship reflects the urgent need from both sides against the backdrop of economic complementarity, experts said, hailing the proposal as a historic move.

Delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the second summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Xi announced 10 major programs in the coming three years to break the three development bottlenecks of backward infrastructure, talent shortage and inadequate funds, accelerate industrialization and agricultural modernization, and realize independent and sustainable development.

The big package covers the areas of industrialization, agricultural modernization, infrastructure, financial services, green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty reduction and public welfare, public health, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security.

Meanwhile, China will offer $60 billion to ensure smooth implementation of the initiatives, Xi said.

Xi stressed that China will adhere to the principles of sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith and strike the right balance between upholding principles and pursuing benefits in its Africa policy.

The African Union has welcomed the elevated partnership between China and Africa, saying it offers the best chance to fight poverty and improve food security.

African Union Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said Friday that China's rapid economic growth and industrialization demonstrated African countries also stood a better chance to eradicate poverty with the right kind of support.

The Chinese president, who is co-chairing the landmark leaders' meeting with his South African counterpart, Jacob Zuma, suggested that the world's largest developing country and the continent that is home to the largest number of developing countries further promote their relations.

"A comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership has been mainly applied to diplomatic ties between two countries. When it is applied between Africa and China, it indicates the continent's strategic importance for China," Yin Yue, a research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times Friday.

China attaches as much importance to Africa as to the EU, since the only regional organization with which China has forged such relationship is the EU, Yin said.

Xi said the two sides should stick to equality and mutual trust, stressing that China always maintains that Africa belongs to the African people's and African affairs should be decided by Africans themselves.

It is perfect timing to enhance the bilateral ties when China has long maintained a relationship of equality and mutual trust and the Western countries, which adopted "interference policies" in North Africa and the Middle East, are stuck in crises like huge number of migrants and the rise of the Islamic State, Liu Hongwu, director of the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University, told the Global Times on Friday. "With the relationship being elevated, the cooperation between Africa and China will be expanded and furthered, considering that the collaboration used to focus on five fields," Liu said.

The five fields are industrialization, agricultural modernization, public health, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security.

Yin noted that industrialization has been prioritized since the African countries are in dire need of industrial upgrading and China is experiencing economic restructuring.

Unlike Western countries, which have already completed their industrialization process, China can share its talent, technology and equipment with Africa as its development mode is similar to China's in the early 1980s, Liu said.

Africa's development in the next 20 years can use China's growth experience in the past 35 years for reference, he added.

Xi said China and Africa have always shared a community of common destiny, with the same historical experiences and the same course of struggle having made the two peoples forge profound friendship.

Africa's trade deficit to China also needs changing through industrialization in the continent, Yin said.

Xi said that China will provide a total of $60 million in aid to the African Union to improve Africa's peacekeeping ability, adding that it will offer 1 billion yuan ($156 million) of emergency food aid to the countries hit by El Nino.

China will increase its assistance to Africa to launch hundreds of "Happy Life" projects on poverty alleviation, and plans focusing on women and children, said Xi. China will also exempt the debt of the outstanding intergovernmental interest-free loans due by the end of 2015 owed by the least developed countries in Africa.

Xinhua contributed to this story