Chinese President Hu Jintao’s three-day visit to the eastern African country Tanzania has concluded by signing Economic Co-operation Agreement and MOU on exports between both countries. Similar deals were signed with Zanzibar, an archipelago and a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania in the presence of Jintao, Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and President of Zanzibar, Abeid Amani Karume by their respective ministers.
The deals which includes $22m preferential loan grant is expected to increase investments from China by reducing bureaucratic interventions which would help Tanzanian farmers to avail loans to purchase agricultural equipment, and to the infrastructural development of Tanzania including Zanzibar. Several Chinese construction companies are already active in Tanzania and the renovation of the Zanzibar’s main stadium will be undertaken by China.
Tanzania is one of the largest beneficiaries of Chinese grants in the region, and this should be regarded as reciprocation to establishing diplomatic ties with China in 1972 against the wishes of the West. It should be recalled; in the early 1970s China built the $500mn Tazara railroad that runs 1,860Kms from the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to the north of Zambia.
Before reaching Tanzania, Hu had visited other African nations Mali and Senegal. The four-nation trip will conclude when he visits Mauritius after the Tanzanian sojourn. The Chinese president had earlier signed similar deals with Mali and Senegal, and re-established the fact that China would continue to support African nations despite global economic crisis.
According to Ministry of Industry and Trade of Tanzania, the Chinese are the sixth largest investor of the country and the list is topped by the UK and India currently. China’s Ministry of Commerce said that China’s trade with Africa had increased by ten-fold to $106.8bn last year from just over $10 billion in 2000 and they have invested $450 million from 1990 to 2006 in Tanzania alone.