New measures stress more on improving Africans' living standard: Chinese premier

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh Sunday that eight new measures he laid out earlier in the day stressed more on improving African people's living standard, compared with measures announced three years ago in the Beijing Summit.

At a press conference here Sunday the premier said the new measures focused on the fields of agriculture, infrastructure, ecological and environmental protection, and social welfare such as health and education.


Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attends a press conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Nov. 8, 2009. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)
He cited his speech earlier Sunday morning that China will build 100 clean energy power stations, 30 hospitals, 30 anti-malaria centers, 50 schools to help more African people.

These new measures also showed that China will help African countries to build up its financing capacity by offering them more concessional loans worth of 10 billion U.S. dollars and cancel the debts associated with interest-free government loans of many heavily indebted and least developed countries having diplomatic relations with China.

The measures will expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges. China proposes to launch a China-Africa joint research and exchange program to increase exchanges and cooperation, share development experience and provide intellectual support for formulating better cooperation policies by the two sides.

Both the new and previous measures are aimed at helping African people improve their development capabilities, said the premier.

Source:Xinhua