China awards $30bn industrialisation fund to Nigeria, others
The Peoples Republic of China has disbursed over $30 billion in funding support to Nigeria and other African countries to drive its cooperation plans on industrialisation and agricultural modernisation.
The Director, Centre for China Studies, Mr. Charles Onunaiju, said the fund was part of the $60bn pledged by China to African countries during the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation Summit, which held in Johannesburg, South Africa in December 2015.
He stated this at a seminar on Thursday in Abuja with the theme: ‘Nigeria-China relations and the prospects to realise industrial and production capacity cooperation’.
The director explained that the fruits of the Sino-African relations could be seen all over the African continent in the areas of agricultural development, industrialisation, transportation and infrastructure development, including rail transport expansion and road construction.
He cited the Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge railway line, which had been completed and already in use, adding that the construction of the Lagos-lbadan-Kano standard gauge was well underway.
Onunaiju said, “President Xi Jinping, at that forum, outlined 10 cooperation plans and provided a funding support of $60bn. More than half of the fund has been disbursed to Nigeria and other African countries.
“Two years after the summit, enormous fruits of the outcome can be seen all over Africa, including the nearly 10,000km Africa’s first electric railway; the nearly 200km Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge railway has been completed and already in use; and the Lagos-lbadan-Kano standard gauge has been inaugurated and construction is well underway.”
The foreign policy expert stated that China-Nigeria relations on industrial and production capacity cooperation offered a unique opportunity to realise Nigeria’s strategic goal of achieving economic diversification and sustainable growth.
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