Chinese enterprises were encouraged to invest and launch more agricultural cooperative projects in Africa and integrate their funds, technology and managerial expertise with local resources and markets.

The two-day Seminar on Sino-African Agricultural Investment and Cooperation opened Thursday. It is one of the important follow-up meetings of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum held in 2000.

Li said Sino-African agricultural collaboration has great potential and bright prospects, which promise a win-win scheme for both sides. Plagued by food crises and a lack of agricultural expertise, Africa has shown a keen interest in China's success in developing agriculture and aspires to expand cooperation with China, according to sources attending the seminar..

Africa has a higher per capita availability of arable land, forests and pasture than China and, on the whole, the continent has favorable water resources and climatic conditions for agricultural production, experts said.

Vice-Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu said: "We'll formulate effective measures to encourage competent Chinese enterprises to invest in Africa and develop African agricultural resources on an equal and mutually beneficial footing."

Such measures include the launching of a special fund to support Chinese investment in African countries, according to Han. He suggested that a coordinating group be set up for Sino-African agricultural cooperation. Since the 1960s, China has launched nearly 200 agricultural aid projects in Africa, including the building of farms and the establishment of agricultural technology experimental stations. It has sent more than 10,000 agricultural technicians to plant or bring under cultivation nearly 70,000 hectares of land, according to incomplete statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Cheng Tao, director-general of the Africa Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and secretary-general of the Chinese Follow-up Committee of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum, said that China will also encourage cooperation in human-resources development and infrastructure construction in Africa.

The Chinese Government is speeding up preparations for the launch of its forthcoming African Human-Resources Development Fund to help address Africa's dire needs for personnel, technology and managerial expertise.

(China Daily September 27, 2002)