China and Nigeria held a strategic discussion in Abuja on Tuesday to strengthen agricultural cooperation between them. Tagged China-Nigeria Agricultural Modernization Cooperation Forum 2017, the meeting discussed ways on how China can assist Nigeria to achieve an increase in agricultural productivity, food security and poverty reduction toward overall sustainable diversification of its economy. Chinese ambassador in Nigeria Zhou Pingjian said China, as a strategic partner of the west African country, stands ready to share its experience in agricultural development and provide financial and technical support toward the country's realization of its agricultural and food security plans.
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The Mozambican and Brazilian governments signed a number of legal agreements in Maputo on Thursday to promote and strengthen bilateral cooperation relations, including one relating to social security, during an official visit to the country by Brazil’s foreign minister. The agreements were signed by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Mozambique, Oldemiro Balói and of Brazil Aloysio Nunes Ferreira Filho, and the Mozambican minister noted the importance of the social security agreement, which establishes that citizens of both countries have the same rights, specifically in relation to old-age and sickness benefits.
The government of China granted eight million USD to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to strengthen WFP's life-saving nutrition support for children and women in Ethiopia. Speaking at the event, Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia La Yifan said: "China has been a long-standing partner of WFP in its humanitarian operations globally." He said the fund would help Ethiopia to overcome the impacts of the severe drought. China is also calling on the international community to extend relief supports to Ethiopia. For his part, WFP Representative and Country Director John Aylieff said China is becoming one of the emerging donors for WFP. "Government exerted its strong leadership, allocating hundreds of millions of USD to facilitate emergency response operations," he said
Research institutes are proving to be the weak link in Nigeria’s drive to diversify into agriculture and make exponential gains by way of earnings, employment and other spin-offs, experts say. The institutes are mandated to develop technologies and practices to improve farmers’ yields per hectare and ensure food security in Africa’s most populous nation. The institutes are however falling grossly short in this direction and lagging behind smaller peer nations, where agriculture is less of a priority. Experts say the key causes of this are underfunding, obsolete equipment and a failure to upgrade human capacity. “Less than five percent of the yearly budgetary allocation for agric research institutes goes into core research, while 70 percent goes into salaries and emoluments, with the remaining going into procurements, renovation and overheads,” Baba Yusuf Abubakar, professor of Animal Science, Federal University of Abuja told BusinessDay, in a telephone interview.
There is considerable scope for joint ventures between the two countries for the production of gold and fabrication and marketing of jewellery in Mali," the embassy said in an email interaction with IANS. The West African country currently produces 60 tonnes of gold per year. Mali offers good opportunities and prospects for Indian entrepreneurs and investors in the gold mining and food processing space, among others, the Indian Embassy in capital Bamako has said. “Mali is Africa’s third-leading gold producer (after South Africa and Ghana) and has an estimated reserve of 600-800 tonnes. There is considerable scope for joint ventures between the two countries for the production of gold and fabrication and marketing of jewellery in Mali,” the embassy said in an email interaction with IANS. The West African country currently produces 60 tonnes of gold per year.
The Chinese government has expressed the urgent need for African governments to be independent of their development, saying Nigeria, as the major African power, is expected to lead a self-sustaining economy. It also pointed out the fact that China is highly interested in maintaining a deeper cooperation with Africa, while stressing that African governments and firms, with preference for small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs), including Nigeria, should come out with workable plans to enable them benefit from the $60 billion funding support from the Chinese government. This was disclosed at a lecture for a delegation of Nigerian journalists on the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ in Beijing, China.
A United Nations official has stressed that China's investment in infrastructure across Africa is key to achieving the continent's development aspirations. Nicholas Rosellini, UN Resident Coordinator for China told Xinhua here late Saturday that China's investment in Africa's energy sector, especially through renewable energy will go a long way to support the continent to create jobs on a large scale. It is estimated that in Africa 600 million people don't have electricity. "And that has affected of course many things. It makes it very hard to run business if you don't have reliable source of electricity. It makes it very hard to run clinics and hospitals; it makes it very hard for children to get educated and to get water. In terms of basic human needs, all of them nowadays depend to some extent on electrification," Rosellini argued.
The Peoples Republic of China has said it will lend Nigeria $4.5 billion to boost local agriculture. The loan is to enable Nigeria purchase farming tools including tractors, bulldozers, graders, irrigation pumps, amongst others. Audu Ogbeh, Nigeria's minister of Agriculture, and Abdulaziz Yari, Zamfara State Governor, made the disclosure while speaking to journalists in Abuja on Tuesday.
China has adopted a range of measures to guarantee the quality of its exports to Africa, said Zhi Shuping, head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine,at a press conference for the fifth session of the 12th NPC in Beijing. Zhi said China is in close contact with 14 African countries to fight against fake products and safeguard legal interests. In 2016, a joint campaign among ports exposed 204 suspected cases involving fake products and seized 660,000 items.