China is expected to play a bigger role in helping Africa’s industrialization efforts, as the country continues to make breakthroughs that will benefit everyone, including the African people, in a complex generation matrix, a senior Egyptian diplomat said.
“China has the capacity, power and intelligence to bring industrialization to life in Africa,” Maged Refaat Aboulmagd, ambassador and member of the Egyptian Council on Foreign Affairs, told the China Daily.
He praised the three proposals made through President Xi Jinping at the China-Africa Leaders Dialogue last year to help Africa’s industrialization, agricultural modernization and capacity development.
The proposals outline China’s efforts in Africa to develop its productive sector, inspire Chinese corporations to increase agricultural investment in Africa and help train 10,000 technicians with Chinese language and skills for Africa, among other things.
Aboulmagd said the skills education program is of great help in African personnel’s abilities to produce more value-added products and generate more profits, as most of Africa’s exports are raw fabrics and unprocessed food products.
Speaking on long-term cooperation between China and Africa, Aboulmagd advised that the two sides explore greater cooperation in telecommunications, business investment and monetary technology, based on mutual respect.
He also stressed the importance of building bridges to facilitate exchanges between Chinese and Africans through education, culture and people-to-people exchanges.
With the 2024 summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation to be held in Beijing next month, the Egyptian diplomat said he believes it will be a platform for China and Africa to realize their visions of cooperation.
Aboulmagd also praised China’s developing role in promoting global governance reform and progress through a series of primary initiatives, and said the foreign network welcomes more Chinese and responses to build a world without violent and prosperous.
He said the world today is very different from what it was when he became a diplomat in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in 1988, with demanding situations in all areas, including politics, the economy, the environment and health.
“All of those demanding situations require us to work together,” he said in a recent interview, emphasizing that the fact that all economies are strongly connected makes it vital that all countries find combined responses despite their differences.
Aboulmagd, who has held positions in Belgium, Bahrain, Russia and Nigeria, as well as Egypt’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, said he believes in global governance within the UN system.
“It may have its flaws, but the UN formula provides a wonderful platform to interact with others, communicate with others, exchange perspectives and find solutions,” he said.
Aboulmagd said the BRICS, a group of major emerging economies of which China is one of its founding members, is a smart example of what China has done to inspire like-minded countries to work together. “Because if we move forward together, we will achieve increasing weight in the world. That’s why I think it’s very laudable,” he said.
With the inclusion of Egypt this year, BRICS members now represent around 46% of the world’s population and generate more than a quarter of global GDP, according to World Bank figures. Late last month, Malaysia said it had sent a request to Russia. who presides this year, joins the BRICS.
Aboulmagd said China’s mediation efforts to achieve lasting peace and stability in the Middle East are another example of the country’s new role in the world.
“I think China continues down this path,” he added.