{"id":14576,"date":"2014-05-23T05:33:02","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T05:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/china-afdb-sign-2billion-co-financing-deal\/"},"modified":"2014-05-23T05:34:30","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T05:34:30","slug":"china-afdb-sign-2billion-co-financing-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/china-afdb-sign-2billion-co-financing-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"China & AfDB Sign $2Billion Co-Financing Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{China and the African Development Bank (AfDB) agreed Thursday a co-financing fund worth $2 billion over 10 years, a multilateral deal signalling a shift in Beijing’s policy of dealing direct with countries.}}<\/p>\n

The deal, Beijing’s latest economic push on the continent, sets up the fund between the People’s Bank of China and the AfDB to finance “sovereign and non-sovereign guaranteed development projects” totalling some $200 million annually, bank chiefs said.<\/p>\n

The shift in setting up a multilateral fund follows criticism by some of China’s growing role in Africa, striking deals including cheap loans in exchange for mining rights or construction contracts.<\/p>\n

“China is a friend of Africa, they invest in infrastructure, in natural resources,” said AfDB president Donald Kaberuka, after inking a memorandum to set up the fund in the Rwandan capital.<\/p>\n

“Now this is the first time I believe in Africa, we are taking mainly a multilateral route… and they have done it because they want to assist in the development of Africa,” he added.<\/p>\n

The fund is named the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF), and bank leaders said it was expected to begin financing projects before the end of the year.<\/p>\n

“We believe that for the next two decades we are going to see a strong growth… and people here are going to raise their living standards substantially,” said Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China.<\/p>\n

“China would like to be a part of this development.”<\/p>\n

China’s economic growth has been partially fuelled by African natural resources including oil.<\/p>\n

The deal follows Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s first tour of Africa tour earlier this month since assuming his position a little over a year ago, a trip seen as seeking to nurture a booming economic relationship.<\/p>\n

According to official Chinese data, since 2009, China has been Africa’s largest trading partner for five consecutive years and an important source for new investments on the continent.<\/p>\n

Li, in a speech to the African Union in Ethiopia, praised the continent’s growing economic power, and vowed to double trade to $400 billion (290 billion euros) by 2020.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{China and the African Development Bank (AfDB) agreed Thursday a co-financing fund worth $2 billion over 10 years, a multilateral deal signalling a shift in Beijing’s policy of dealing direct with countries.}} The deal, Beijing’s latest economic push on the continent, sets up the fund between the People’s Bank of China and the AfDB to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000052318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[75],"byline":[334],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000052318,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14576.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14576.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14576.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14576.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14576.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14576.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000052318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14576"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14576"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}